Public Sector As Partner For ABetter Society

European Public Sector Award 2015
The Public Sector as Partner

for a Better Society
2015
Julia Bosse
Michael Burnett
Susanne Møller Nielsen
Claude Rongione
Harrie Scholtens
ISBN 978-90-6779-000-0
© 2015, European Institute of Public Administration.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, EIPA. For translation or
reproduction rights please contact:
European Institute of Public Administration,

O.L. Vrouweplein 22, P.O. Box 1229,
6201 BE Maastricht, the Netherlands.
EIPA’s website: www.eipa.eu
Typeset and printed by the Publications Service, EIPA, the Netherlands
With the support of

the European Commission,
DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
The Public Sector as Partner
for a Better Society
Julia Bosse
Michael Burnett
Claude Rongione
Harrie Scholtens
The European Commission supports EIPA through

the European Union budget
© 2015, European Institute of Public Administration /

Institut européen d’administration publique
Maastricht, the Netherlands / Pays-Bas
www.eipa.eu
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of EIPA.
Table of Contents
Opening Words 9
Foreword 11
List of Authors and Editors 13
General Introduction 15
Aim and structure of the publication 16
Part 1: EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices 17
1. Context of the EPSA 2015: “The Public Sector as Partner for a Better Society” 18
1.1 Effective engagement by government with stakeholders 19
1.2 New service delivery approaches 19
1.3 Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 20
1.4 Sound public finance 20
2. Supra-Local/Local administrative level 21

2.1 Introduction 21
2.4 Innovative knowledge management and leadership approaches 27
3. European/National/Regional administrative level 31

3.1 Introduction 31
3.4 Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 39
4. Conclusions 43
5. Bibliography 46
Part 2: Best Practices Catalogue 47
EPSA 2015 Statistics 48

Evaluation and Selection Methodology and Process 51
Supra-Local/Local administrative level 54

Statistics
Supra-Local/Local administrative level 56

Project executive summaries
European/National/Regional administrative level 84

Statistics
European/National/Regional administrative level 86

Institutional Partners EPSA 2015 124
Table of Contents 5
List of Best Practice Projects
Supra-Local/Local administrative level

Effective engagement by government with stakeholders
Fremfærd 57
Submitted by Fremfærd (DK)
Local Human Rights in Utrecht – Empowering a Local Network with Global Value 58
Submitted by the Municipality of Utrecht (NL)
HSD Campus and HSD Development Fund 59
Submitted by the Municipality of The Hague (NL)
The Rural Accelerator 60
Submitted by the Municipality of Sjöbo (SE)
Your City, You Decide 61
Submitted by the Municipality of Lublin (PL)
Better Place 62
Submitted by the City of Kolin (CZ)
Urban Environment and Health 63
Submitted by the Barcelona Provincial Council (ES)
We Design for Life 64
Submitted by the Municipality of Kolding (DK)
Action Programme for Large Families – Three Plus Family 65
Submitted by the Municipality of Lublin, Department of Health and Social Affairs (PL)
Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT) 66
Submitted by the Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT), North Somerset (UK)
New service delivery approaches

Merger of North and South Tipperary County Councils into a Unified Tipperary County Council 67
Submitted by the Tipperary County Council (IE)
Project of Improvement of Quality of Public Services 68
Submitted by the Alytus City Municipal Administration (LT)
Digital Pathology 69
Submitted by the Cova da Beira Hospital (PT)
Environmental Geographic Information System (GIS) of the Drama Regional Unit – The Application
of a Decision Support System & Public Information Tool in the Greek Administration 70
Submitted by the Environmental and Spatial Planning Administration of East Macedonia
and Thrace Region, Greece
Solidarity Barn Project – Celeiro Solidário 71
Submitted by the Campolide Parish Council (PT)
SocialXChange – More than a Charity Shop 72
Submitted by the General Direction of Social Care and Child Protection, 6th District, Bucharest (RO)
Home Debt Intermediation Service 73
Submitted by the Barcelona Provincial Council (ES)
Rijeka’s eBenefits 74
Submitted by the Municipality of Rijeka, Department of Health and Social Welfare (HR)
Social District Teams 75
Submitted by the Municipality of Zaanstad (NL)
Every Child Safe Forever (ECSF project) – The Development of Relentless Family Case
Management and the End of Parole and Other Court Orders 76
Submitted by the Youth Protection Amsterdam Region (NL)
From Settlement to Employment 77
Submitted by VIVA, Bamble Kommune (NO)
6 List of Best Practice Projects

Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches
LGBT-Friendly Ljubljana 78
Submitted by the Municipality of Ljubljana (SI)
The Future Education Vision of Reykjanesbaer Town 79
Submitted by the Reykjanesbaer Municipal Education Office (IS)
Sprouts of Karşıyaka 80
Submitted by the Karşıyaka Municipality (TR)
Improved Customer-Oriented Policing in an Age of Austerity 81
Submitted by the Garda Síochána Division of Dublin North Central Police Service (IE)
The Potential Profile 82
Submitted by the Ikast-Brande Municipality (DK)
Sound public finance

New Sustainable Management Model – Street Cleaning Services and Solid Waste Collection 83
Submitted by the Public Sanitation and Environmental Protection Municipal Limited Liability Company,
Seville (ES)
European/National/Regional administrative level

FremKom – Future Competencies in Northern Jutland 87
Submitted by the North Denmark Region
Venue and Information 88
Submitted by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency
Green Deal Approach in the Netherlands 89
Submitted by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs
Climate-Proof Water Management: Social Dialogue and Regional Participation 90
Submitted by the Hollands Noorderkwartier District Water Control Board (HHNK) (NL)
Room for the River 91
Submitted by Rijkswaterstaat, the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (NL)
River Bed Vegetation Map 92
Submitted by Rijkswaterstaat, the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (NL)
Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) 93
Submitted by the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) (PT)

BQ-Portal – The Information Portal for Foreign Professional Qualifications 94
Submitted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
ALF (Child Benefit without Application) 95
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF)
NetRegs 96
Submitted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (UK)
Domain-Transcending Standardisation with Standard Business Reporting (SBR) 97
Submitted by Logius, the Digital Government Service of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and
Kingdom Relations
The Citizen Portal 98
Submitted by the Portuguese Agency for Administrative Modernisation (AMA)
The Citizen’s Guide of the Region of Epirus 99
Submitted by the Region of Epirus (GR)
Justice 3.0 / eJustice 100
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
List of Best Practice Projects 7

Public Geo Datasets at your Service (PDOK) 101
Submitted by the Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency
Administrative Reform in Hungary: One-Stop-Shop Government Windows as the Initiation of
Equal Access to Public Services 102
Submitted by the Prime Minister’s Office (HU)
Citizen Spot 103
OiRA – Online interactive Risk Assessment tool 104
Submitted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA)
Online Certification of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) 105
Submitted by the Portuguese Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (IAPMEI)
Latvia’s e-index 106
Submitted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia
The Portuguese Health Data Platform (PDS) 107
Submitted by the Shared Services of the Portuguese Ministry of Health (SPMS)
Navarra’s Integrated Chronic Care Strategy (ICCS) 108
Submitted by the Government of Navarra, Department of Health (ES)
Paradigm Change in the Communication Strategy – Increasing Customer Value and Potential Savings
with Customer-Focused Information and eGovernment Solutions instead of Mass Communication 109
Submitted by the Regional Government of Upper Austria, Department for Family Affairs
Tourist Logistic Platform – Balearic Islands Project 110
Submitted by the Agency for Tourism of the Balearic Islands, Regional Ministry for Tourism (ES)
Available Cinema 111
Submitted by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS)
Right from the Start 112
Submitted by the Upper Austrian Health Insurance
Sensitisation for Climate Protection Measures in Daily Life – Workshop for Female Migrants 113
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
The Chatroom of the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services 114
Submitted by the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services

A Wealth of Ideas – IdéRiget 115
Submitted by the Rigshospitalet (DK)
Development of Lifelong Learning Opportunities in Rural Areas 116
Submitted by the Lithuanian Education Development Centre
Police Competence Training 117
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior, Department I/9, Competence Management

Challenge-Driven Innovation – Societal Challenges as Growth Opportunities 118
Submitted by VINNOVA, the Swedish Innovation Agency
Global Find 119
Submitted by the Portuguese Business Development Agency, Aicep Global Parques
Public Contracts Portal (BASE) 120
Submitted by the Portuguese Real Estate Institute (INCI)
SABO’s Kombohus – Forcing Prices Down to Raise Public Housing Construction 121
Submitted by the Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies (SABO)
Green Jobs Programme 122
Submitted by the Biodiversity Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment
Programme for the Internationalisation of the Third Social Sector and Social and Cooperative
Economy of Catalonia 123
Submitted by the Catalan Business Competitiveness Support Agency (ACCIÓ) (ES)
8 List of Best Practice Projects

Opening Words
By Marianne Thyssen
European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility
The today’s challenges for the European Union and its Member States need more
than ever a coordinated answer based on a solid partnership between all actors.
Among them, the public administrations play an essential and central role.
For example, the European Employment and Social policies are supported by
the European Social Fund, the management of which is shared between the
Commission and the Member States and their regions. The impact of these
policies depends on our capacity to deliver effectively the support we provide to
projects aiming at developing human capital, modernising labour markets and
promoting social inclusion.
Hence, the theme of the European Public Sector Award (EPSA) 2015 “The Public
Sector as Partner for a Better Society” is highly topical and reflects the current
pan-European needs. In total 266 contenders from 36 countries and European
institutions responded to this year’s call. The submitted projects showed that the
public sector working in partnership is a reality for many public administrations
across Europe and that administrations found ground-breaking and future-
oriented solutions to many commonly experienced challenges.
The fact that 31% of all EPSA 2015 submissions come from EU co-funded projects also shows that with the
support of the European Commission, many administrations across Europe engage in ongoing efforts of public
sector modernisation striving towards highly performing institutions. The current social and economic challenges
require institutions, which are strong and stable, but also flexible enough to adapt to change, open to dialogue
with economic and civic stakeholders, notably the social partners, and have the ability to introduce new policies
and to deliver adequate and forward-looking services.
The nominated projects, as well as the best practice cases selected, show that the EPSA fully reflects current
developments in Europe, since it has identified projects that have found and implemented innovative solutions
to address common concerns regarding migration, labour market integration, youth unemployment and youth
protection, as well as citizens’ involvement. At the same time, the selected nominees also demonstrate that EPSA
is very attentive to rewarding leading-edge public sector initiatives exploring new ways of working together, with
proven results for improved efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector.
The vision of EPSA is to create an arena in which Europe’s public sector institutions can excel and become
examples for the rest of the world. The projects in this publication represent a valuable source of inspiration for
other public administrations across Europe and beyond.
Consequently, knowledge transfer is a strong “trade mark” of EPSA. For instance, the technical guidance document
Quality of Public Administration - A Toolbox for Practitioners recently published by the Commission uses many
illustrative case examples of working solutions, many of which stem from previous EPSA editions.
I am therefore very much looking forward to seeing this dynamic tool enriched by EPSA 2015 practices and
warmly congratulate the EIPA for the continuous effort of bringing together public administrations in a European
network of public sector excellence and for being an acknowledged learning arena across Europe.
Opening Words 9
Foreword
By Marga Pröhl
Director-General of the European Institute of Public Administration
As Director-General of the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA),

I am delighted about the rich harvest of the 5th edition of the European Public
Sector Award (EPSA), which resulted in 266 submissions from 36 European
countries and some European institutions. EIPA, as the leading centre for
European learning and development, is ideally placed to organise the EPSA.
Since 1981, it is EIPA’s mission to support the European Union and its Member
States and the countries associated with EIPA by providing relevant and high
quality services to develop the capacities of public officials dealing with EU
affairs. By organising the EPSA contest scheme, EIPA is in a privileged position
to observe public sector innovation and new trends at the various administrative
levels.
As in previous EPSA rounds, we could again count on the financial and

institutional support of the EPSA Steering Committee. In line with the changing
relations between administrations and citizens and the trend towards a greater
use of alternative and user-centric service delivery models, the EPSA 2015
Steering Committee comprised of representatives of our official partners,
selected together with EIPA the overarching theme “The Public Sector as
Partner for a Better Society” for this year’s edition.
The submitted cases of this year’s edition range from leading edge eGovernment solutions over holistic integration
and inclusion strategies fostering social cohesion, to innovative leadership approaches, economic development
and measures to combat (youth) unemployment and thus illustrate the full wealth of the EPSA scheme. It also
shows once more the success of public administrations across all layers and sectors to continuously improve and
to focus on the needs of citizens, while empowering them and other societal players to contribute to shaping a
better society for all.
In general, the EPSA 2015 followed roughly the structure of the previous edition, but introduced three different
awards. Two were given according to the two administrative categories: European/National/Regional and
Supra-Local/Local and the third one was presented to a successful and outstanding case, drawn from both
categories, demonstrating a significant cross-cutting perspective, e.g. cross-administrative, cross-sectoral and/
or cross-border.
The wide European spread of EPSA 2015 submissions and the fact that as many countries as never before
took part in this year’s edition demonstrate the recognition of the EPSA as leading European network of public
sector excellence. The latest proof of this recognition can be seen in the inclusion of many EPSA best practices
in the European Commission’s Quality of Public Administration - A Toolbox for Practitioners1 as mentioned by
the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen, and also in the
report “Powering European Public Sector Innovation: Towards a New Architecture” by the European Expert Group
on Public Sector Innovation.2
1
See http://ec.europa.eu for the abridged and full version of the Quality of Public Administration - A Toolbox for Practitioners.
2
European Commission Expert Group on Public Sector Innovation, 2013, Powering European Public Sector Innovation:
Towards A New Architecture, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. Click to see this
document here.
Foreword 11
Furthermore, it is widely acknowledged that benchmarking and learning from good practice lead to innovation.
Good practice elements serve in turn as a source of inspiration for practitioners, policy-makers, other public
innovators and change agents, and contribute to driving public sector quality by smartly adapting them to the
respective national, regional or local contexts. As a consequence, good practice awards like the EPSA have a
great potential to foster quality in public administrations as they showcase and recognise public achievements and
make available key methodologies ready for replication and adaptation.
Therefore, the most interesting proven EPSA solutions and methods coming from a variety of administrative
sectors are used in EIPA’s administrative capacity building and contract activities for the benefit of all public
servants. Our well experienced staff facilitates the adaptation of these results to specific public sector contexts
and thus assists public entities in striving towards public sector excellence.
I thus warmly invite all readers to take part in EIPA’s interactive trainings and seminars and to learn more about
the methods and success factors behind the EPSA best practices.
Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the 12 partners of the EPSA 2015 Steering Committee
(the European Commission, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway Sweden
and Switzerland, as well as the City of Maastricht and the Province of Limburg), who provided the EPSA 2015
Team with valuable advice and support. I would like to extend my special thanks to the European Commission,
and in particular to the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, in the person of the
Commissioner Marianne Thyssen, and to the Directorate-General Human Resources and Security, in the person
of the Vice-President and Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. My gratitude goes also to the full EPSA 2015
Team at EIPA for their extraordinary level of dedication and commitment to making this EPSA round yet another
successful award edition.
12 Foreword
List of Authors and Editors

Manager of EPSA & Capacity Building Specialist, EIPA
[email protected]
“The diversity and complementarity of the EPSA cases are characteristic

of the EPSA 2015 edition. These cases constitute an important European
knowledge platform of innovative solutions for value creation, better public
service delivery and economic growth. They will be used in EIPA’s capacity
building activities aiming at sharing inspiring best practices as well as
connecting public sector innovators across Europe.”
Claude Rongione
EPSA Information Officer, EIPA
[email protected]
“Being on the frontline of the EPSA submission process is a privileged

position to be the first reader of many innovative and creative incoming
ideas and solutions developed and implemented across Europe at different
administrative levels. I thought I had seen it all, but this year’s rich harvest
was yet another enthralling experience for me.”
Michael Burnett
EPSA Category Leader & Expert, EIPA
[email protected]
EIPAPubMan
“The projects submitted at European, national and regional level show a real
commitment to address the multiple challenges of budget constraints, weak
growth, high service demand and damaged trust in government.”
List of Authors and Editors 13

Harrie Scholtens
EPSA Category Leader & National Seconded Expert, EIPA
[email protected]
HarrieScholtens
“Local governments’ action nowadays is based on the real needs of citizens

due to their proximity. It was impressive to see which ways are found to
establish forms of co-creation, cooperation and co-policymaking. Changes
are no longer organisation-centred, but are increasingly demand-driven.”
Julia Bosse
EPSA Research Assistant, EIPA
[email protected]
“Trying to find linkages between the different EPSA cases and grouping them
was very exciting. The wide range of partnership and cooperation approaches
breaking down departmental silos and engaging with various stakeholders
was impressive. EPSA 2015 showed that constant improvement focusing
on the needs of citizens is well established across all administrative sectors
and layers.”
14 List of Authors and Editors

General Introduction
The fifth edition of the European Public Sector Award (EPSA) took place this year under the overarching theme
“The Public Sector as Partner for a Better Society” which was identified together with the twelve institutional
and financial European public partners of the EPSA 2015. This year’s edition sought to showcase and reward
those cases from Europe’s public sector that embrace public administrations as partners in integrated and
participatory governance approaches to public service delivery, that show increased effectiveness and efficiency
in the context of maintaining social cohesion, innovative public management and leadership approaches, as well
as sound public finances or intelligent action by public administrations to promote economic growth.
Since 2009, the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) has been running this biennial award scheme,
which represents a European Network of Public Sector Excellence. It is the only Europe-wide public sector award
open to all public administrations from all levels across Europe bringing together the best, most innovative and
efficient performers with the aim of showcasing and awarding exceptional public sector practices all over Europe,
and making this valuable experience transparent, available and usable.
So far, EPSA has brought together over 1000 cases of public excellence. All rewarded cases contain inspirational
and working solutions which are ready to be adapted to and replicated by other public sector institutions in their
own administrative cultures and systems. Hence, public administrations that submitted applications for EPSA
2015 became part of this extensive European network of public sector excellence, in which they can benchmark
their achievements with their peers, whilst at the same time learning from each other.
Under the theme of the EPSA 2015 edition “The Public Sector as Partner for a Better Society”, 266 projects from
36 European countries and European institutions were submitted. Thus, the EPSA 2015 has gathered more
European countries than any of the previous editions and shows that working in partnership is a necessity for all
levels of public administrations across Europe in order to contribute to and take the lead towards a better society.
In addition, the outstanding submission rate clearly shows that the EPSA is a well-established and recognised
network for public sector excellence in Europe.
Total of EPSA 2015 applications by country

Austria 18 Latvia 6
Belgium 6 Lithuania 20
Bulgaria 8 Luxembourg 2
EU Institutions (3) Malta 2
Croatia 3
Czech Republic 1 Montenegro 2
2 Cyprus 2 The Netherlands 14
Denmark 10 Norway 1
11 1
1 Estonia 1 Poland 15
Finland 1 Portugal 17
1
6 France 1 Romania 6
10 FYR Macedonia 1 Serbia 1

20
Germany 4 Slovakia 4
6 2 15 Greece 13 Slovenia 9
14
6 4 Spain 39
1 Hungary 13
2
4 Iceland 2 Sweden 11
18 13
1 1 Ireland 6 Switzerland 1
9 3 6
17 Italy 17 Turkey 3
1
2 1 8 Kosovo 1 United Kingdom 2
1
39 13
17 3
2 2
General Introduction 15
For this edition, public administrations could submit their projects under two different administrative categories, i.e.
European/National/Regional or Supra-Local/Local. 160 entries were received in the category European/National/
Regional and 106 in the Supra-Local/Local category.
These 266 projects give a glimpse of excellent public practices across Europe that answered the EPSA 2015 call
for applications. Since the participation in the EPSA is voluntary, this publication does not claim to provide an
exhaustive overview of public sector reform across Europe and across all administrative levels, which, as stressed
by scholars on various occasions, is strongly context-dependent and based on the different administrative cultures
and organisational structures. Nevertheless, this report presents real and proven examples of public sector
excellence, which are, of course, implemented in concrete settings and backgrounds, but which display valuable
approaches and elements that can be adapted to other public sector contexts. In that sense, the EPSA is a clear
learning arena and knowledge transfer source in support of public modernisation and reform processes for all
public administrations across Europe and even beyond. Needless to say that many of the identified best practice
solutions are excellent examples for strengthening administrative capacity as funded, for instance, by the TO 11
of the European Structural and Investment Funds (especially the ERDF and ESF).
Aim and structure of the publication
The foremost aim of this publication clearly is to highlight the trends identified from the EPSA 2015 practice-front and
to share best practices and best practice elements with the wider public sector community – as a source of inspiration
for their own change projects. As already pointed out above all these best practices present innovative and evidenced
solutions of public administrations facing current (European, if not worldwide) challenges related to areas such as
migration and integration, health and educational sectors, the labour market, energy, the environment and demographics
coupled with pressures on welfare budgets and general budgetary constraints. Changes towards more collaborative
ways of working, developing new approaches, from service design to delivery, considering sound public finances and
new leadership models, can be found in many administrations and across all administrative levels.
Thus, this publication presents a first analysis and taster of the novel solutions applied by public administrations
across Europe. Further and more in-depth analysis of these practices is provided in EIPA’s seminars and capacity
building activities.
This publication is split into two parts: A EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices report analysing the best practices and
successful elements identified in the EPSA submissions, which are of interest to other public administrations
looking for solutions on how to address current challenges, and the Best Practices Catalogue containing the
edited executive summaries and contact details of the EPSA 2015 winners, nominees and best practice certificate
recipients, as well as all the statistics and figures of the submissions.
The trends and practices report explores the rationale of the overarching theme “The Public Sector as Partner
for a Better Society”, which is rooted in the current discourse around public sector innovation, co-creation and
administrative modernisation and reform, and is thus also embedded in the two key emergent concepts of New
Public Governance (NPG)1 and Digital Era Governance (DEG) 2 .
This introduction is then followed by an in-depth analysis of the nominees, best practices and best practice
elements displayed by the EPSA 2015 cases split into the respective administrative categories under which they
were submitted (European/National/Regional and Supra-Local/Local). Each administrative chapter starts with
some introductory remarks before examining the best practice elements according to the four indicative areas
(effective engagement by government with stakeholders, new service delivery approaches, innovative knowledge
management and new leadership approaches, and sound public finance) identified within this broader theme.
Common elements, enablers and barriers will be pin-pointed during this analysis.
The general findings and common trends across the two administrative categories are sketched out in the joint
conclusions at the end of this report.
1
Osborne, S, ed., The New Public Governance: Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance,
Routledge/Taylor and Francis, London and New York, 2010.
2
Dunleavy et al., “New Public Management Is Dead – Long Live Digital-Era Governance”, Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory, July 2006, 16 (3): 467-494; first published online September 8, 2005.
16 General Introduction
Part 1:
EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices
1. Context of the EPSA 2015:
“The Public Sector as Partner for a Better Society”
The public sector accounts for almost 50% of countries’ GDP in the EU28 and has thus a crucial role to play
in Europe’s socio-economic development, progress and competitiveness. However, during the last years, most
public administrations across Europe have experienced continued strains on their public finances and staff
reductions, with the first signs of tentative recovery appearing only recently, while being persistently confronted
with rising welfare costs due to the effects of the financial crisis and demographic change. At the same time, public
authorities have seen themselves confronted with increased citizens’ demands and expectations for wider and
better service delivery urging public administrations to innovate and to “do more with less”.3
The pressure on the public sector to increase efficiency and to deliver more citizen-centric and targeted services
and to enhance democratic participation is not new. However, the current challenges of globalisation, technology
and the digital revolution, increased mobility of people, goods and services, and of so-called “wicked” (highly
complex) problems like the maintenance of social cohesion and climate change are now more likely than ever
before to have a more fundamental impact on the role of the public sector in Europe.4
Against these challenges, there is

a growing demand for innovation
and collaborative and citizen-
centred production and delivery of
public services across all layers in
the public sector. ICT, open data
and social media play a crucial role
in this respect for tailoring services
to individual needs through service
personalisation and for reducing
transaction costs. They also have
a huge potential for improving
openness, transparency and thus
accountability. The latter is, in turn,
strongly affected by increasingly opening up decision-making and service design and implementation to citizens
and by cooperating with other external stakeholders like the third sector or businesses. A more active role for
these stakeholders means that they get shared ownership of policy formulation and implementation as well as
service delivery. Consequently, accountability of the public sector depends more and more on negotiated goals
and oversight. Governing thus becomes an increasingly complex processes in a collaborative multi-actor setting.
Engaging in co-production, design thinking and co-creation also has clear implications for public sector leadership
and management in the way that there is a concentration on joint value creation and shared sense-making. As
a result, the managerial focus should not only concentrate on internal working processes, but also on socio-
economic impacts.
In this respect, public sector innovation (PSI) and social innovation have started to dominate the discourse on
public sector reform and for quality improvements in public services without having to rely on heavy cost-cutting.
In fact, innovation has been a buzzword in politics and administration since the 80s around the world even if
it lacked an empirical base until recently and has only lately raised academic interest.5 PSI can be defined as
the process of generating new ideas, and implementing them to create value for society either through new or
improved processes or services. Overall there is innovation in the public sector (with focus on improved processes
3
Bosse, J., Heichlinger, A. and N. Thijs, “From Strengthening Administrative Capacity Building (ACB) to Public Sector
Innovation (PSI): Building Blocks and Successful ‘Bridges’”, Eipascope, Bulletin 2014, EIPA, Maastricht, 2014, p. 32.
4
Towards A New Architecture, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, p. 9.
5
Osborne, S. P. and L. Brown, Introduction: Innovation in public services, In: Osborne, S. P. and L. Brown, Handbook of
Innovation in Public services, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Cheltenham, 2013, p. 1.
18 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015

or services) and innovation through the public sector where innovation is promoted elsewhere. The best innovation
results in the public sector are achieved through combining both an internal perspective on new or improved
processes and an external perspective on improving public service delivery.6 The innovations are often classified
into incremental (different from gradual service development) and radical innovation. While radical innovation is
a transformative change and affects the entire system (e.g. introduction of the worldwide web as communication
channel), incremental innovation is still a disruptive change, but affects either the organisational skills or the
product/service needs.7
With PSI being a fashionable concept, it is important to shift the current discourse from the level of rhetoric about
renewing the public sector to finding and implementing working solutions. PSI has a high potential for positive
impacts on public administration and society, but it should be remembered that innovation in the public sector
mostly happens randomly, rather than as a result of systematic and strategic efforts. There is thus a need for a
new architecture for public sector innovation and to build capacities to innovate and steer change processes at
national level, in regional and in local governments.8
For engaging in the improvement of services or processes, crucial questions have to be answered such as
“How to keep up with the seemingly contradictory challenge of better, but cheaper service delivery?” and “What
does this mean for areas such as public sector leadership, governance or resource management?”
These questions will be examined in the following two chapters by analysing best practice cases and other
elements of best practices identified in the EPSA 2015 across the two administrative categories (European/
National/Regional and Supra-Local/Local) that present proven and evidenced solutions. These best practice
elements will be mapped into four indicative areas:
1.1 Effective engagement by government with stakeholders
Under this area, the readers will learn about cases that deal with the question of how to include citizens and
other cross-sectoral stakeholders in participatory approaches for policy formulation, strategy development,
evaluation and/or improved transparency in the policy cycle. Examples comprise broad coalitions of various
societal stakeholders as monitoring actors for local or regional policies, consensus-based policy instruments,
social dialogue and participation or integrating citizens into the policy cycle or strategic development through
consultation platforms, design thinking approaches and participatory budgeting.
At the same time, cases will be presented that demonstrate effective engagement by government with stakeholders
to achieve better policy coherence and new means of effective collaboration between departments and sectors,
or between administrative levels (European, national, regional and local).
These new forms of involvement also go hand in hand with new ownership models, including user empowerment,
facilitator or mediator roles for government and public-private cooperation, often across different administrative
entities, and tapping into the expertise and competence of various actors for modernisation of public services in
areas such as education and training, social care, employment and labour market, health, business development,
regional development, environment and customs, etc.
1.2 New service delivery approaches
Analysis in this area deals with the challenge of reducing administrative burdens through facilitation of reporting
obligations, through providing standardised and unified information and through service integration.
6
Towards A New Architecture, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, pp. 11-13.
7
Note that Osborne and Brown (2013) also add architectural innovation as being a total innovation comprising organisational
and product change. However, other PSI literature mainly concentrates on the radical and incremental mode of innovation.
8
Towards A New Architecture, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, pp. 9 and 26.
EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015 19

In addition, innovative examples about people-centred services, such as single points of contact, client-centred
one-stop-shops even moving to “no-stop-shops”, as fully automated procedures for allocating allowances and
providing assistance, self-help measures and user empowerment will be presented. This also includes increasingly
personalised and tailor-made solutions, which are often achieved with the support of adapted eGovernment
and eParticipation for improved public service delivery, e.g. through eLearning, eHealth, eProcurement,
eInvoicing, eJustice, etc. Geographic Information System (GIS)-enabled new services and systems for facilitating
administrative control equally present possible solutions under the EPSA 2015 theme, as well as government
engaging increasingly with social media to ensure better service delivery and citizen information.
Effective solutions ensuring equal access to public services, bridging the digital divide, respecting social, but also
geographical inclusion as in providing equal opportunities in rural areas are also examined as a crucial aspect of
service delivery.
1.3 Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches
How to link PSI, human resource management and the creation of innovation and learning cultures? This section
will look into knowledge management and new leadership approaches enabling innovation inside administrations.
This will include methods for overcoming innovation barriers, the management of innovation processes
and initiatives as well as new structures for public learning organisations, evaluation methodologies and the
establishment of a learning culture in the public sector, where both ideas and failures are embraced and treated
as learning situations.
Furthermore, innovative leadership approaches such as co-leadership and network governance or new ways of
involving staff and external partners are considered in this field. This also includes leaving room for project and
policy experiments enabling frontline employees to bring in their user-experience for innovations and prototyping.
Leadership training methodologies to build new critical leadership skills for success at different levels of
management, effective measures for career development and skills development methodologies for public sector
staff, such as traineeship programmes, young professional schemes, coaching and eLearning networks, will also
be analysed in this section.
1.4 Sound public finance
Sustainability and liquidity of public sector finances are beyond any doubt the cornerstone for successfully managing
the public sector and providing a wide range of services. Hence, this section will shed light on the innovative
approaches to sound public finance. This includes innovative funding mechanisms involving government to a
different degree in the risk-taking of innovations, new public procurement practices and effective budgeting and
financial management practices. Efficient methods and approaches for implementation of large public investment
and development projects also form part of some of the examined cases.
20 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015

2. Supra-Local/Local administrative level
2.1 Introduction
The government at supra-local and local level is operating in the nearest surroundings of citizens – and almost every
decision taken at this level has an impact on the daily life of the citizens. Due to the technological developments
especially in ICT features used by increasingly demanding citizens, (supra) local governments have to find new
ways to stay in contact with their inhabitants. EPSA 2015 succeeded in collecting a wide range of examples of
how (supra) local governments try to respond to these challenges.
This chapter will take the reader through the exciting world of these developments in the field of co-creation,
cooperation, co decision-making, service delivery and other ways of how to involve citizens.
Society is changing rapidly, especially nowadays due to technological developments. News is spread very
fast throughout a country and even the world. Besides, media comment on everything that happens within
government, which influences public opinion. This medial omnipresence is nowadays completed by social media.
These platforms make it possible to spread individual opinions around the world. Hence, democracies turn from
representative democracies into more media-driven democracies.
The world-wide interconnectivity makes another approach of democracy necessary. Successful change will
consist in using modern techniques and not seeing them as a threat. Many EPSA 2015 submissions demonstrate
how important the use of modern internet tools has become and that open data give access to an incredibly high
amount of information, which can be used for free and which is almost costless for public administration.
In general, all projects submitted to this year’s edition mean a change of work patterns, organisational cultures
and leadership, which necessitates looking beyond practices in one’s own organisation and looking for other best
practice examples. This also involves “copying” working practices and adapting them to one’s own context, which
often includes improving them (“Best Stolen Prize” as it is a common term in the Netherlands). In the following
sub-chapters, the EPSA 2015 best practices from the supra-local or local level will be analysed and common
elements highlighted according to the four indicative areas presented in the introduction.
One of the solutions to regain confidence by government is to engage stakeholders who have an interest in
specific topics. Many people are often interested in a certain project (for example in the case of infrastructure
projects) and/or in the development of policies (for example regarding environmental issues). Engaging them from
the outset when preparing political decisions gives them ownership of the process and results and can thus lead
to a wider acceptance of the formal outcome of the governmental decision.
Several ways of engaging stakeholders (civil society and businesses) can be found in the EPSA 2015 applications,
as for example in strategy development, policy formulation or the budgetary cycle.
In terms of strategy development, excellent cases are EPSA2015032 Fremfærd (DK) and EPSA2015217 Local
Human Rights in Utrecht – Empowering a Local Network with Global Value (NL). While Fremfærd is about
improving municipal employment strategies and conditions to ensure effective local governance, the latter project
is about anchoring a human rights culture in local politics and strategies.
The Fremfærd project is an outstanding case of how cooperation between the parties to the collective agreements
in the municipal labour market – the employers’ association on the one hand and employees’ organisations
organised in the Fremfærd umbrella organisation on the other hand – can result in a positive development of a
region. Both parties concluded the agreement on which Fremfærd is based. The reason for the parties concluding
this formal cooperation is that municipalities, municipal workplaces and (personnel) organisations in cooperation
with Fremfærd can help with and/or participate in activities that can strengthen the development of municipal work
and municipal workplaces. This, in turn, increases the efficiency of the municipal sector, which is essential both
for the citizens and companies belonging to the Danish society. To ensure that municipalities continue to work
more efficiently, it is crucial that individual citizens and the primary task are in focus when developing municipal
workplaces. Employees and managers are central players for ensuring that these objectives are achieved.
EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 21

Such a cooperation needs the will to make compromises. The parties in this case succeeded in combining the
goals of their own organisations for the future of the whole region. Such cooperation and agreements occur more
often in times of austerity. The real strength of this kind of cooperation will be proven in times of stronger economic
growth. Nevertheless they already succeeded in creating thousands of jobs in the region.
The case Local Human Rights in Utrecht – Empowering a Local Network with Global Value is an impressive
example of bottom-up engagement of many civil society, academic and business organisations united in a Human
Rights Coalition, which is also joined by the Municipality of Utrecht, to anchor the human rights perspective in local
politics and thus in strategic development. In this successful governance process, knowledge, methods and strategies
are shared and crossovers between different initiatives are discovered. By uniting operational actors (business, civil
society organisations, etc.) and government as the legitimising actor, this coalition is well equipped to integrate the
human rights perspective successfully in local policy initiatives and also at international stage via projects.
Effective engagement by government with stakeholders often also plays a role for economic development as in
the case of EPSA2015137 HSD Campus and HSD Development Fund (NL).
The project concerns the development of the HSD Campus, the Dutch National Innovation Centre of The
Hague Security Delta and the HSD Development Fund. This project was undertaken by the City of The Hague
in collaboration with the HSD foundation and sponsored by Kansen voor West/EFRO Fund, in order to better
facilitate the security sector, and specifically foster a triple helix cooperation and stimulate innovation (businesses,
governments and knowledge institutions) within the Dutch security cluster.
As the title of this project already indicates, one of the most important pillars is the creation of a HSD Campus.
It gives the opportunity for partners to be together at a neutral place, exchange experience almost immediately
and it helps to bring the best up in the partners. Besides, this project illustrates successfully the effects of using a
European fund (ERDF), if used smartly.
Effective engagement of partners for economic development is also one aspect of the project EPSA2015056
The Rural Accelerator (SE), in which many local stakeholders contribute to creating more entrepreneurship-
friendly conditions in the rural area of the Municipality of Sjöbo with 8000 inhabitants to prevent brain drain
and economic decline. The partnership brings together individual entrepreneurs and business owners, public
administration and local schools to actively connect young people and local companies with the
aim of bringing the idea of entrepreneurship and staying in the region closer to pupils.
Involving stakeholders is not only important in regard to policy-making, but also in terms of
carrying out concrete projects. In some cases experiences with engagement of stakeholders
in policy-making are evaluated by involving them in concrete projects. An example here is
the project EPSA2015107 Your City, You Decide (PL), which is an outstanding case of transparent citizen
involvement in the local decision-making cycle and participatory budgeting. The impact of the project is high. It is
fully accepted in society and many citizens take actively part. The result is that the decisions of the Town-Council
are more accepted. In some cases districts have also the possibility to spend money for a certain task. As a result,
the decision to finance concrete district projects are also more accepted in this way.
It is remarkable that the process is also used for social inclusion activities. This starts with talks and discussions in
decision-making, for instance regarding the participatory budgeting and the question how much money should be
spent on social inclusion. Eventually, the processes are also used for implementing concrete social inclusion projects.
Another brilliant example of how to open up government and render it more transparent and collaborative is the
case EPSA2015254 Better Place (CZ). In 2010, the City of Kolin participated in the Better Place (BP) pilot project.
BP is a social responsible online platform which immediately and directly allows users to deliver feedback on
how to improve public space. BP is part of the modernisation and development process of the city administration.
The project reflects the City of Kolin’s strategic focus on advancing eGovernment solutions. It represents a
modern and effective tool for communication between citizens and city management by promoting openness and
transparency. This project is a great example of using modern tools to improve citizens’ involvement, which gets
more and more common in Europe (see for instance the initiative “Better Reykjavik” ). It is a very effective way of
involving citizens in decision-making.
Looking at cross-sectoral and cross-departmental cooperation, the project EPSA2015068 Urban Environment
and Health (ES) provides many lessons learnt. This project creates synergies between different areas of political
22 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

action and across 13 administrative departments (involving 49 professionals from 15 different disciplines) to
promote healthy urban environments fostering the improvement of a population’s health. Taking into account that
the design of cities and towns (urban planning, gardens, parking, transport network, district’s equipment, etc.) has
direct impact on people’s health, it becomes clear that the strategy, promoted by the UN, “Health in All Policies”
(HIAP), requires the collaborative work of different professionals.
This project shows how cross-cutting aspects can be implemented. Sometimes, cooperation between or with public
sector entities is only possible based on regulations. Hence, there are governmental entities which choose to stick
to regulations and to strictly stay within their field of legitimacy regarding internal or external cooperation. On the
contrary, this project demonstrates an active communication between departments and government layers beyond
legislative obligations and thus succeeds in reaching the goal of incorporating health aspects into decision making.
Another very successful methodology of involving citizens in strategy development is design thinking, which is
illustrated by the case EPSA2015039 We Design for Life (DK). In this project, the Danish Municipality of Kolding
involved its whole community across all sectors (welfare users in general, business, the educational sector, civic
organisations and citizens) to jointly develop a new vision for the municipality and a way forward. The approach
chosen is strongly characterised by its human-centred and user-oriented processes, in which stakeholders
co-create together with the administration a new vision and also test/prototype their ideas to see if they are fit to
be further developed (according to the principle “fail fast, fail cheap and get on with it”).
In all these involvement and co-creation processes, it is very important to identify the right stakeholders. People
have to be approached directly by government and public officials have to talk to them, which is crucial and can
improve the decision process.
Many of the EPSA cases also demonstrate the involvement of stakeholders for better service delivery and co-
creation in joint service delivery. This often includes different ownership models such as a facilitator and enabler
role of governments. While many EPSA 2015 projects are based on shared ownership, the cases EPSA2015040
Action Programme for Large Families – Three Plus Family (PL) and EPSA2015059 Senior Citizen Liaison
Team (UK) will be portrayed as examples here. While the first project provides support to all families residing in
the area of the City of Lublin with three or more children up to the age of 18 or 25 (if they are in full-time education)
and was the first initiative of this kind in Poland, the second project deals with a tailored safety education for the
growing elder community originally initiated by a small group of police officers volunteering in their off-duty time.
The Action Programme of Large Families is an example of how cooperation at the supra-local level can lead
to an improvement of quality of life for certain target groups. An administration cannot do this on its own, because
of a lack of experience and resources. Thus, in this project the administration cooperates with non-affiliated
entities to support the up-bringing of children, the creation of a positive image of multi-children families as well as
improved access to cultural, sports and leisure properties through taking advantage of discounts and exemptions
offered. In this case the government acts as a facilitator or mediator to bring the partners
together. This project shows the various roles a government can have in modern society.
The Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT) project even presents a model in which the
ownership lies with a civil society organisation, supported by government. This project is
a bottom-up initiative with impressive results. In its initial 12-month period (2009/2010),
distraction burglaries in Avon and Somerset were reduced by 56%, in tangible terms this means 90 fewer victims
of distraction burglary. Consequently, this case demonstrates the effects of people caring about the society.
Governments have a responsibility for safety. It is very good to see that a project like this improves this typical
governmental product. The next step should be to incorporate it in the (governmental) organisation.
In conclusion, sometimes the engagement is based on regulations, but the EPSA cases also illustrate that very
often engagement was based on successful bottom-up initiatives, which later helped to develop cooperation
agreements and regulations. Examples can be bottom-up initiatives developed by civil society in which
government becomes a partner (for example the Local Human Rights Coalition in Utrecht) or cooperation in
which government takes the role of a facilitator bringing together different operative actors for concrete projects or
for joining and enhancing government initiatives (for example the Action Programme for Large Families project
from the City of Lublin). A lot of projects show next steps in these developments and in some cases they will be
an example for adjusting regulations in the (near) future.
This shows the capacity of governmental organisations to develop into learning organisations.

Thanks to the developments of increasingly demanding citizens, governments are almost forced to find other
ways of service delivery. If they do not develop and improve their services, it is possible that a very negative image
will be spread within the (social) media. At the local level, the implementation of benchmark systems becomes
more popular. Techniques of the private sector are used to improve the performance of governmental institutions.
Hence, many administrations initiate change processes to cut red tape and often to become more efficient.
An excellent example in this area is the case EPSA2015024 Merger of North and South Tipperary County
Councils into a Unified Tipperary County Council (IE). Mergers of governmental organisations are not easy.
They depend often on formal regulation, which are the result of political deliberations of parties in favour and against
of the merger process and thus often contain many compromises. In the case of the Tipperary County Council,
the merger took place in two inter-related phases (a planning phase and an implementation phase), which led to a
consensual merger implementation plan. This plan comprehensively detailed the approach to be taken to ensure
that the merger would happen on schedule. Thus, the procedure was clear and there was some time to work forward
to the implementation phase and organise the acceptance of this merger. Thanks to this detailed planning, this
comprehensive merger consisting of 128 mini merger ‘projects’ ranging from the integration of major systems like
pay-roll through to minor processes such as parking fines, was concluded successfully according to schedule.
With all the difficulties faced, this is a good example of how to merge governmental institutions.
Another interesting case about efficiency gains in public administration is the project EPSA2015051 Project of
Improvement of Quality of Public Services provided by the Alytus City Municipal Administration (LT), which
was a long-term project implemented from 2009 to 2015 to achieve quality improvements in public services
by creating and implementing a “one-stop-shop” public service system, the Common Assessment Framework
(CAF) and performing external evaluation of the activity of the administration. This change project and back
office re-engineering took place based on an increase of claims and applications presented by citizens and at
the same time unsatisfactory evaluations according to which citizens were puzzled by the complexity of service
requests (time, in-transparent processes and no single service system). The City of Alytus reacted timely to this
situation with three well-placed measures, with which it was able to accompany the change process for staff and
to enhance efficiency through the one-stop-shop as single access point.
This case also shows that eGovernment plays a crucial role in the efficiency of the public sector and the
improvement of service delivery. This is partly due to the fact that citizens are already used for a long time to
purchase products or services online when it comes to the private sector. They thus hold similar expectations
for the public sector. Hence, it was not surprising that governments, pushed by the public, use these techniques.
For instance, in many countries it is already possible to fill-in tax declarations completely online. It is already common
practice of administrations, as in the case of the Municipality of Alytus, to put forms for entitlements, services, etc.
online so that citizens can already come prepared to appointments. Many also offer fully fledged eServices, where
the request and often related payments can completely be done online. This development will continue.
Numerous organisations also invest in this field by educating their staff. Next to this, very often a physical change
in workplaces is necessary to reach this goal. Examples are the implementation of one-stop-shops as in the
case of Alytus and rebuilding offices with flexible working places where no staff members have their own fixed
workplace anymore. Of course this also depends of the level of digitisation. All kinds of developments in this
direction which lead to new service delivery approaches against lower costs can be found in EPSA cases.
Apart from client-centred one-stop-shops, EPSA best practices from the supra-local or local
level also exist in the area of eHealth and GIS-enabled systems for more efficient government
control.
In the area of eHealth, the project EPSA2015038 Digital Pathology (PT) demonstrates how
diagnoses can be reduced from 16 to 7 days thanks to the creation of a global management platform among
the project partners (Cova da Beira Hospital, the Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade
do Porto (IPATIMUP) and the company ZMWAY - lab solutions). This innovative method allows the acquisition,
management, visualisation and analysis of all the stages of an examination, from the moment it enters the
department until the relevant diagnosis is presented. The time in which doctors can make a diagnosis is sometimes
a matter of life and death. This special project shows how it is possible to reduce with modern techniques a
possible life-saving period. There is almost no better example of improving service delivery.

How Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to increase the productivity of an organisation, to
enhance the administrative process in the framework of environmental licensing, inspection and auditing and
to provide open data to the people (citizens, surveying companies and potential stakeholders) is shown by
project EPSA2015251 Environmental Geographic Information System (GIS) of the Drama Regional Unit –
The Application of a Decision Support System & Public Information Tool in the Greek Administration.
The Region of Drama in Greece decided to combine a GIS system with extensive digitisation of environmental
and related data and datasets using server and cloud-based tools and applications, in order to create a powerful
decision support system/public information tool.
A picture often gives much more information about a situation than words do. Presenting governmental projects
with the help of Geographic Information Systems can help visualising and understanding necessary measures.
These kind of projects are mostly very complicated. Therefore it is always very important to see and to experience
how these projects are carried out in other municipalities or regions. This is one of those projects that can serve
as example and inspiration in this context.
However, eGovernment is not the only change of practices, also the culture of a client-oriented organisation
is very important. This includes, among others, (social) services targeted at specific and often underprivileged
groups. This perspective is strongly present in the EPSA 2015 submissions at the supra-local or local level, as
one fourth of all submissions stems from the public health and social welfare/affairs sector. Thus, there is a strong
orientation of public services towards the social needs of their citizens, many of which still suffer
from the effects of the crisis. The projects EPSA2015120 Solidarity Barn (Celeiro Solidário)
(PT), EPSA2015177 SocialXChange – More than a Charity Shop (RO) and EPSA2015096
Home Debt Intermediation Service (ES) are best practices in this field and directly connected to
alleviating suffering caused by the effects of the crisis.
Celeiro Solidario is a project for supporting disadvantaged people and communities with economic needs and
food shortages. This movement came into existence by a protocol signed between the Municipal Councils of
Lisbon and Loures and the Association Dar i Acordar, which coordinates the project. The Campolide Parish Council
promotes the daily distribution of recovered meals donated by its partners. These meals have never been served,
were not exposed, never in contact with the public and are fully adequate for consumption. With this project, food
previously considered as waste has a nobler destiny, improving the quality of life of people, meeting their dietary
needs and minimising damage to their health by reducing an unbalanced diet, rich in carbohydrates and sugar.
This project demonstrates that in difficult economic times, public authorities have to engage in sometimes unusual
tasks. These also have to be delivered in a proper way.
SocialXChange is a new concept of social solidarity designed to promote involvement and mutual benefit
in support of community relations. The concept of this charity shop is built on the desire to transparently and
efficiently collect donations of different people and to redeploy them among people in difficulty, giving them the
opportunity to choose products according to their real needs.
Conceived as an exchange network and charity system, the project provides an important resource to the
community, namely the exchange of products that people no longer use and which people in need can obtain
by engaging in community service activities in return. Like this, it anchors one of the core missions of the public
sector, namely social responsibility, in the community of the 6th District of Bucharest.
In this project the use of new techniques is not the central point, but the thought behind it is as simple as it is
genius: “Take your role in society and you get help to find your way in life.” That is another approach of service
delivery than usual and a move towards a participatory society (“Expect something from your client”) and user
empowerment. Exchanging charity goods for community services is a rather creative and new idea for social
assistance. This concept could also be seen as a sharing economy approach initiated by the public sector, of
which the final beneficiary is the community as this system facilitates the distribution of basic goods, which are
needed by some, but would have been thrown away by others.
The Home Debt Intermediation Service (SIDH) was founded by the Barcelona Provincial Council to protect the
right to housing by preventing the loss of homes due to mortgage loan repayment difficulties, which many families
in Spain faced as a dramatic effect of the crisis. SIDH offers free specialised legal advice and intermediation
with financial entities to defend resolution proposals. Through a network of 28 service points, SIDH covers 279
municipalities with a potential population of 2,975,000 people. Between 2013 and 2014, the service was provided
to 1,533 people and 736 case files were closed. The success rate in 2014 was 76.6%.

Through the service’s multi-level governance model, based on the principles of subsidiarity and equality of rights,
SIDH assures assistance to the province’s whole population regardless of whether citizens live in a small, medium
or big municipality. In addition to equity, the model combines proximity, effectiveness, integral support, one-stop
service (access to all resources from a single point) and efficiency (avoiding duplicities, optimising resources
and utilising economies of scale). SIDH’s methodological premises are: 1) prevention: anticipation of payment
default; 2) a commitment to out-of-court formulas for the management of conflict resolution (intermediation);
3) centralising the negotiation with the financial entities at regional level since it is more effective to negotiate
there than at local level; and 4) the empowerment of citizens, making them active agents in the resolution of their
financial problems. In this intermediation role between citizens and financial institutions, the Barcelona Provincial
Council is a best case example for social responsibility of public administrations.
The project EPSA205109 Rijeka’s eBenefits (HR) is yet another successful case of social service provision.
This initiative has been developed with the target of improving beneficiaries’ access to information, as well as
increasing efficiency of the city’s social welfare system and improving communication between city administration
and citizens in general. It encourages social inclusion of the poor and socially excluded people at two levels:
by encouraging digital inclusion as a precondition for social inclusion and by facilitating availability of social
assistance. This project is strong by showing how eGovernment can be used to improve the quality of the
organisation and can play a role in improving social inclusion of citizens. In addition, it deserves attention for
its uniqueness in the context of Croatia and the fact that the Municipality of Rijeka developed this eBenefits
programme also in response to a study that showed that many people in risk of poverty did not claim the full social
assistance they were entitled to. Since it was assumed that this was due to a lack of information, the existing
social service information portal was further developed, communication between administration and citizens was
improved and additional measures, such as free IT training courses for citizens, were implemented. This citizen-
centred and proactive attitude by public administration is noteworthy.
Regarding social assistance, two local Dutch cases found innovative methods for coping with
youth social care, long-term care and job placement and welfare services (EPSA2015240
Social District Teams) and specifically with specialised care to families whose children face
severe safety threats (EPSA2015262 Every Child Safe Forever) by applying innovative case
management based on the principle “one client, one plan, one professional”.
The Municipality of Zaanstad chose the approach of Social District Teams being faced with the “three
decentralisations”, which made local governments responsible for providing youth social care, long-term care and
job placement and welfare services while comprising significant budget cuts of 10%-30%. Municipalities, already
responsible for part of the social domain assignments, would take over these responsibilities from central and
regional government. The main motivation for the ‘three decentralisations’ were the rising costs of maintaining
the Dutch welfare state. This system is no longer sustainable due to the aging population. One interpretation of
the welfare state was that it also deprived citizens of their own initiative and made them too easily dependent on
professional caregivers. Thus the decentralisation underlines a societal shift: moving from the welfare state to a
participatory society.
However, opportunities arose as well. Municipalities were given a single budget for these assignments, and the
freedom to carry out the decentralisation as they see fit. In addition, municipalities are now in control of nearly the
entire social domain. This enables them to create an integrated organisation for support that can provide more
effective care with less bureaucracy and in a more cost-effective way.
Every Dutch municipality faced these developments and many solutions were found to deal with the challenges
due to the change in legislation. The municipality of Zaanstad made the choice for Social District Teams with a
broad package of tasks as tailored services and new forms of cooperation (between the service providers and the
municipality, and between the service beneficiaries and the providers). Examples are the exchange of experience
among contractors, which has been made a tender requirement, or the new principle of “one household, one plan,
one director”, which empowers people by involving them in taking back direction of their own lives. This demands
cooperation with stakeholders in order to deliver good products to clients. Zaanstad succeeded in this way of working.
Efficient case management can also be learned from the Youth Protection Amsterdam Region with their project
Every Child Safe Forever (ECSF) – The Development of Relentless Family Case Management and the
End of Parole and Other Court Orders. This is an excellent example of how governmental organisations can
cooperate for the benefit of their vulnerable clients. Enthusiasm of staff is one of the pillars to success. And as can

be observed in many projects, the start of a total change of the organisation was at the moment that the financial
situation was very bad. It created the “sense of urgency” not to work anymore “inside-out” but “outside-in”, that
is to say adapting the client perspective and offering services in a consumer-oriented way, which includes taking
into account the reality each client lives in.
The organisation makes use of Intensive Family Focused Case Management which is an integrated approach
offering a professional methodology and organisational context to work on the structural guidance of children. Similar
to the Social District Teams, the principle applied is “One Family, One Plan and One Professional”. The work method
includes effective elements of the Delta method, family group conferences, multi-problem family approach and
Functional Family Parole Services. Both projects thus show a strong tailor-made and user-centred approach.
The Youth Protection Amsterdam Region operates within a chain of public and private social services, youth care
and education organisations, the majority of which is dependent on municipal funding. Moreover, the agency
participates in network discussions with all regional and (inter)national stakeholders to stimulate the sharing of
knowledge, influence on policies and provide professional training-programmes. Thus, it can also be described as
a special bureau operating in a network society to reach its goals.
EPSA case EPSA2015159 From Settlement to Employment (NO) is an introductory programme which is jointly
carried out by the Department for Welfare and Labour Affairs of the Norwegian Municipality of Bamble (NAV) and VIVA
(a municipal-owned organisation in the field of integration, adult education and activation) in order to better integrate
refugees into the Norwegian society. Consultants in the area of labour affairs and pensions from the municipality
of Bamble work together with adult educators and teachers from VIVA for the programmes offered to the refugees.
This programme is built on the belief that social activities contribute to people’s wellbeing as everyone would
like to be part of society, family and work. By looking at people’s individual skills, VIVA and NAV help them find
a meaningful way of their lives as many of the refugees lost everything. It is VIVA’s and NAV’s philosophy to
assist refugees in building up new and good lives in Norway based on their individual skills
and resources matched with the Norwegian labour market, education system and cultural life.
It is interesting to notice how in this small community with roughly 14,000 inhabitants
stakeholders work together to reach the ultimate goal of integration of refugees. The focus
for the integration is on language skills and knowledge of the country habits. The project’s success can be an
example for other projects in small communities.
When speaking about social inclusion, geographic inclusion providing equal opportunities to rural areas has
also to be taken into account. The project The Rural Accelerator mentioned earlier is again an example of how
in smaller regions (economic) development can be stimulated through cooperation between stakeholders and
of how cooperation is necessary to give an alternative to the “big” city. It is a hard competition in terms of rural
development around cities.
2.4 Innovative knowledge management and leadership approaches
In order to realise all kinds of new approaches it is necessary that management in an organisation thinks about
how staff can learn about all these new developments. This means change, that is to say change of organisational
culture and change of ways of working, including management. Organisations are changing into permanent
learning organisations.
It can be observed in many EPSA projects that organisations invest a lot in leadership to support this change. In
addition, in many administrations staff members get more responsibilities and have to work more independently.
They have to take decisions on their own within the framework of their specific task. This means also a lot for
leadership tools – no real hierarchy anymore, but a style of coaching. Management has to see to it that the
organisation is developing within the boundaries of its overall vision. They have to coach their staff to be part of
these developments with the central question: ”How do you think you can be part of this development?”
A consequence of this is that the organisation has to give the tools to staff to do their job in this independent way,
which can be problematic in this time of austerity. Financial cuts are often made in the field of education of staff.
On the other hand, this situation also can lead to unorthodox and innovative measures. Inventive leadership
makes it possible to do more with less.

The EPSA 2015 edition saw many cases of excellent leadership and vision-building processes and local
positioning, as for instance in terms of the Municipality of Kolding as a design-driven and innovative town, in
terms of a cosmopolitan and open-minded city in the case of Ljubljana or regarding an educational vision in the
case of Reykjanesbaer.
In the framework of the project We Design for Life already mentioned earlier, a new vision for the Municipality of
Kolding was decided by the Town Council in December 2012: “We Design for Life – Together we design options
for a good life through entrepreneurship, social innovation and education”. This vision does not only indicates
where Kolding wants to be in 2022, but also how to get there. It is built on the basis of Design Thinking methods
and the intention is to become a full-scale Design Thinking community by 2022. A part of the project has been
the development of a completely new leadership charter through a design process involving 250 leaders, a new
employee policy, and a design process model including a toolbox for design-driven public innovation. A major
strength of the vision and a solid brand base lies in the involvement of the whole community both during the
development of the vision and now in the realisation.
This project symbolises how necessary it is to develop new leadership models. If an organisation succeeds in this,
one can immediately see a change in the working patterns within this organisation. This entails that it will become
normal that an organisation looks outside its own borders and learns from the outside world. That is the way to
develop a vision on the future of a municipality.
EPSA2015124 LGBT-Friendly Ljubljana (SI) is a project worth to be known in case of starting discussions on
how to improve the living situation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people – in many cases
not an easy topic, but Ljubljana shows the way how to start and continue.
Still in many countries LGTB people are not always accepted in society. It makes their lives not always easy. Ljubljana
started a project to increase the acceptance, based on the principles of equality, inclusivity and accessibility.
It offers diverse support to the development, organisation and implementation of projects and programmes for
the LGBT community. The City offers them financial (funding through annual public tenders) and spatial support.
Currently, the City is implementing a project entitled ‘LGBT-friendly certificate’. This idea originated within the
City’s Health and Social Care Department, and the entire project has grown in close partnership with NGOs.
The purpose of the certificate is to raise public awareness. The certificate will be awarded to all public and
private organisations that inform their co-workers on LGBT-related themes. In this way, they ensure within their
organisation a better understanding of the basic human rights of all people and an inclusive environment. The City
has also been welcomed into the European Rainbow Cities Network.
EPSA2015227 The Future Education Vision of Reykjanesbaer Town (IS) presents a real
intervention in school education. It means a break with the traditional educational culture, which
seems necessary in order to improve the performance of schools.
In 2011, the Town of Reykjanesbaer set the ambitious goal to bring all the town’s pre-, primary
and secondary schools to the top of national rankings in education. The agreement is a statement of intent to
improve the educational success of children in Reykjanesbaer.
The role of the Future Vision can be described as twofold. On the one hand, it creates support and discipline for
the town’s schools, while on the other hand it provides a template that directly affects the daily schedules of each
school. This entails emphasis on literacy and mathematics, regular screening of students, assessments, good
cooperation between schools and parents and finally research and regular consultation with higher education
academia.
A strong start in these two disciplines is a key to success as this provides the best foundation for future achievements
in the town’s education. Screening in literacy/reading and mathematics is of paramount importance in the vision’s
procedure as the screening is in line with the newest research that has pointed to the correlation between success
and early intervention. This project is noteworthy because of the breaking with a long culture and its success.
The case EPSA2015136 Sprouts of Karşıyaka (TR) stands out for the active decision of the administration of
Karşıyaka to provide support to its university students with insufficient income in the form of housing support and
thus to keep future knowledge workers in its regions. The project came into life based on the Constitutional Court

law of 2008, which prevents municipalities from giving direct scholarships to university students, which creates
difficult living conditions for students. The Municipality of Karşıyaka developed a creative system to still be able to
support students by cooperating directly with tenants of apartment buildings who support beneficiaries with 300
TL for the duration of 10 months. In turn, their public image is significantly improved and their social involvement
officially recognised.
Education is very important for the development of a municipality and a region. Much more important is that
educated people stay in a region and that a region can have the profits of their knowledge. In this project potential
students are brought into the position that they can receive good education even if they come from disadvantaged
families. The organisation of this scheme holds interesting lessons learnt for many administrations.
The importance of leadership in change processes is impressively demonstrated by the project EPSA2015072
Improved Customer-Oriented Policing in an Age of Austerity (IE).
In the context of austerity, diminishing resources, reducing salaries, increasing customer expectations and police
reform (doing more with less), the senior management team in the Garda Síochána Division of Dublin North
Central Police Service, supported by research, funded the Garda organisation set out to explore the market-
orientation performance relationship in a policing context. A very interesting project on how policing can be brought
closer to citizens started under these circumstances, with a result that both actors understand each other better.
This project illustrates how people can be convinced to work in another way and to cooperate with the outside
world, which is very important in a case related to safety and the reduction of theft. Police
organisations are known as hierarchical organisations, based very often on a culture of “order”.
They have to be rebuilt into organisations in which own initiative is normal. This is exactly what
is achieved in this project as police officers are encouraged to take decisions on their own
within the framework of their task. How to reach this can be learned from this case.
A very good example of a business change process and a full strategic repositioning at the level of a local
government agency is the case of EPSA2015172 New Sustainable Management Model – Street Cleaning
Services and Solid Waste Collection (ES). This is a convincing example of an organisation which found itself
at the point of exhaustion in 2011 with wage freezes, a lack of investment, a considerable increase of waste
processing and an unsustainable budget, but which had still the strength and courage to initiate a business
restructuring in order to eliminate a previously acquired debt of more than 50 million euros, and to restore the
company to positive numbers.
This is thus an impressive project showing how in the case of introducing a new management model, based on
Vision, Culture, Presence and Change Management, a public company can make a real change and turn into a
successful and financial healthy company.
As mentioned earlier on, the training and empowerment of and co-creation with staff and creation of a transparent
and risk-tolerating learning culture is one important step for systemically implementing innovation processes into
organisations.
One excellent example in this regard is EPSA2015133 The Potential Profile (DK). The Potential Profile ensures
the development of high quality day-care centres via a new and effective form of partnership between public
departments. The project is being run in close collaboration between management and employees in day-care
centres, project developers from the municipal Pedagogical Psychological Counselling, department heads and
managers in the administration, and the political system. Employees in administrations are directly involved through
co-design and co-creation in the development of new intervention tools coupled to the day-care centre map.
In addition, much attention is paid to employees’ skills development by providing them with new and research-
based knowledge, and by integrating relevant new pedagogical tools in their everyday life via education, training
and supervision carried out by employees from the municipal Pedagogical Psychological Counselling and via
collegial coaching by colleagues in the centre. Thus, this project illustrates in an inspiring way how to develop new
structures for public learning organisations and how to establish a learning culture in municipal day-care centres.
Creating high quality municipal day-care centres is a challenge involving many players in the public sector.
It has been possible to map the quality in day-care centres, but it has not been possible to couple the map with
interventions which can ensure an improvement in quality. The Potential Profile succeeds in creating a close
correlation between the map of the centre´s quality and a tool for intervention. Tailor-made effective actions
precisely suiting the individual centre’s need for quality improvement are prepared.

The project EPSA2015068 Urban Environment and Health (ES) mentioned earlier on also contains good
elements of a learning organisation by providing training and knowledge resources to staff of the more than 300
municipalities of the Province of Barcelona. One of the most important parts of this project is that civil servants of
municipalities are educated on how to incorporate health aspects in decision-making. Thus, health is integrated
into other policies not only by regulation, but mainly by “leading by example” and providing training coupled with
a well-stocked online database. This is an excellent example of how education can work to help realising goals.
In this respect, it is also worth mentioning again EPSA2015051 Project of Improvement of Quality of Public
Services submitted by the Alytus City Municipal Administration (LT) as this project is an excellent example of how
an organisation can be improved by self-assessment. It strengthens the base of change and leads to a constant
improvement of knowledge and education of staff.
Whatever the developments in society and as a derivative thereof in government and politics are, they must be
based on sound public finance. For the sustainability it is essential that financial resources are well managed.
But how finances are allocated is part of the political decision making. And politics is influenced by the opinions
in society, which makes the whole process very complex. Changes and developments require the allocation of
money for education of staff. In times of austerity it needs new ideas and approaches to find the right balance
between what is needed and what is possible. Often, budgets for education are the first which are cut in financially
difficult times. And also new technological developments need investments.
It is not always easy to find the right balance, but with good leadership some organisations succeed in changing
the way of working within their organisation where they improved the quality of their work with less costs.
In this respect, the organisational re-engineering carried out in the framework of the project EPSA2015172 New
Sustainable Management Model – Street Cleaning Services and Solid Waste Collection (ES) is noteworthy.
This project has been mentioned earlier on as an excellent leadership and re-positioning example of a public
agency, but it is also a case of an excellent re-organisation of financial management practices with amazing
results within a short time span of only three years. Apart from the impressive production and organisational
improvements, this project managed to turn a desolate financial situation with a negative equity of €9 million at
the end of 2010 into a positive equity of €5.1 million. Thanks to policies of controlled spending and increased
efficiency, these results of improving Seville’s cleaning services while at the same time reducing operational
costs were achieved. Other impressive financial achievements regard cutting the average number of days to
pay suppliers by half (from 132 days in 2011 to 60 days in 2014), to cut down bank debt regarding credit lines
to zero and to reduce the total of long- and short-term bank debt from €12.5 million in 2011 to roughly €450,000
in 2014. The reduction of debt is particularly noteworthy as heavy investments to renew the street cleaning
equipment were carried out at the same time, which might have hindered such a debt reduction. This project can
be an inspiration for many other public entities on how to change a previously mismanaged, in terms of services
provided and finances, agency by 180 degrees by totally revising its strategy and operations. Waste management
is one of the most important local public services both in terms of financial resources used and societal impacts.
In general, the EPSA 2015 saw a new trend of governments searching for projects which can also bring financial
benefits, important for sound financial public finance. In total, there were, however, only very few projects
concentrating exclusively on sound public finance. Instead, sound public finance was often one of the results
achieved during the project implementation. This development goes into the right direction, because it also shows
that integral management is becoming more and more common. This means that the emphasis is no longer only
on implementing a project, but also on the financial consequences.


3. European/National/Regional administrative level
3.1 Introduction
The projects submitted for the European, National and Regional level in EPSA 2015 highlight the different
dimensions of innovation in the public sector, underpinned by ICT applications as a facilitator of innovation, based
as far as possible on open data standards, subject to privacy and security considerations. They also highlight the
challenges needed to mainstream innovation within an organisation via service process re-engineering, culture
change, allocation of resources, and the engagement of external stakeholders and staff. They illustrate the need to
ensure that appropriate processes are used to capture innovative thinking and translate it into action and also its
need to focus on applications which support the current overarching priorities of promoting economic growth and
fiscal consolidation by reducing costs and optimising revenues. It underlines the importance of ensuring that the
most skilled staff are deployed on the highest priorities and most difficult tasks facing an entity. The year of 2015 has
seen the unfolding of what has been described as the greatest crisis facing Europe since 1945 i.e. the movement of
unprecedented numbers of non-European citizens aiming to relocate themselves to Europe, presenting challenges
which demand immediate priority and place at a premium the available energy of public administrations to address
the other challenges which they face. This is reflected in a range of projects submitted in EPSA 2015 which aim at
the better integration of migrants into the European labour market. The cases referred to below are the nominees
and other best practice certificate winners. The description of each case includes a brief description of the nature
and objective of the project and a summary of the key tools and methodologies applied.
The opportunity to deliver more and better services for Europeans is a powerful way to re-connect stakeholders
with policymaking and government. Co-design between policy makers and stakeholders not only leads to effective
outcomes, it also redistributes the power dynamic by handling stakeholders a share of influence and a sense of
empowerment, ownership and collective responsibility in governance. Co-creation is taking hold in policy making.
The EPSA 2015 best practice cases within this area are future-oriented solutions to commonly experienced
challenges in engagement of stakeholders in policy making.
The Danish project EPSA2015187 FremKom – Future Competencies in Northern Jutland is a co-operative
venture between all the municipalities in Northern Jutland to identify potential future skill shortages and address
them through common action in an environment of limited budget resources. The key stakeholders are employers,
educational institutions and local authorities within the region. The aim is to create a common basis for addressing
future skills needs in the region.
The key methodology is a three-stage process. The first stage is analysis i.e. creating a better
understanding of future skills needs within the region, followed by debate amongst stakeholders
from the results of the analysis both regionally and locally, acting as an enabling resource to
initiatives to give practical effect to the activities and initiatives which emerge from the previous
debate and dialogue. It is underpinned by broadly based political support at regional and also
national level, a common feature of many successful projects evaluated in EPSA. The analysis and debate are
supported by the key pre-requisites of common assumptions and common statistics. A second relevant feature
is the way in which the project has evolved since its inception in 2007. In the first phase it created a common
methodology for analysis based on selected sectors within the labour market, which was expanded in the second
phase to a broader range of sectors and the analysis was enhanced by geographical segmentation and further
deepened in the third phase (currently in progress).
The project demonstrates a strong match with the cross-cutting attributes which are increasingly being considered
to be an essential dimension of effective engagement with stakeholders by governments. These include the fact
that there is horizontal co-operation between municipalities at the same level of administration and cross-sectoral
in that it engages with employers and educational institutions. The geographical and sectoral scope includes the
partners necessary to make the co-operation effective and over time the number of participating organisations
has increased.
EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / European/National/Regional administrative level 31

The project has delivered concrete outcomes in terms of a direct link to the creation of 6000 jobs within the region.
Other output-based results include, for example, those directed to early education leavers, such as information on
educational opportunities, competence assessments, educational plans, education and skills training and partnership
agreements between schools and companies to foster further education of such employees who had been early
education leavers, through educational ambassadors tasked in individual companies to promote these initiatives.
Another project example of strong cross-departmental perspective and policy coherence is the Swedish project
EPSA2015074 Venue and Information implemented by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. The project aims
to facilitate and thus improve the social and labour market integration of migrants who have obtained residence
in Sweden. It was developed as a co-operative venture between a number of Swedish national public sector
agencies and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The key element of the methodology
of this project is provision of a range of support services to new arrivals by existing co-located inter-disciplinary
teams, thus improving services to migrants and reducing costs. The objectives of this project have gained an
increased political profile given the higher level of migration to Sweden in 2015.
The EPSA2015070 Green Deal Approach in the Netherlands is an example of government responsive to
bottom-up initiatives, since the initiative for Green Deals often start with the partners themselves. The project
submitted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in partnership with the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment
and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, aims to promote environmentally sustainable economic
growth through promoting innovation. It aims to remove barriers faced by businesses, civil society organisations
and other public sector entities such as sub-national government in implementing actions consistent with such
growth. The key methodology used is a multi-party agreement, typically including business, civil society and sub-
national government partners, which must fall within the nine themes of the project and defining the innovative
characteristics of the aims of the agreement, the roles of the parties and the expected outcomes. It is also an
example of government in an enabling role i.e. not generally by providing financial assistance but more by actions
such as adjustment of regulations, streamlining licensing procedures or facilitating the creation of networks or the
raising of capital, while also monitoring progress of Green Deal initiatives. This underpins the idea that removing
legal and regulatory barriers is one key way in which public sector entities can promote innovation-driven economic
growth, though this example does not extend to time-limited exemptions from regulation, which is a more radical
manifestation of this concept. The Green Deal approach is one of a number of policy instruments used to promote
environmentally sustainable economic growth, thus underlining the more widely applicable principle that effective
public sector action is often multi-faceted. The project also supports the argument that environmental technologies
can contribute to growth while continuing to address the climate change agenda, and thus underpins the key EU
policy strand of aiming to create a circular economy.
The following three projects from the Netherlands are three examples on social dialogue
and stakeholder participation for shaping policies and decision making in the field of water
management and environmental protection.
EPSA2015119 Climate-Proof Water Management – Social Dialogue and Regional Participation is developed
as a response to strong public opposition to plans to install water storage facilities in a location within the province
of Noord-Holland. The opposition from residents, farmers and businesses became clear from the local Water
Control Board’s attempt at wide ranging consultation (climate dialogue) on the proposals to which more than 300
stakeholders responded. The outcome prompted the organisation to undertake a review and re-design of internal
processes and culture, using internal dialogue with staff to do so, and the launch of a different process of social
dialogue with external stakeholders for the development of the water management plan for 2016-2021.
The key methodology used in the project, which is in a high priority policy area in the Netherlands, was stakeholder
co-design rather than traditional consultation on pre-determined solutions. This required an often difficult process
for the public sector of unlearning past approaches, in this case founded on often highly effective engineering
solutions but for which lower priority was given to persuading stakeholders of their advantages. The social dialogue
with external stakeholders led to more than 1,000 ideas being generated by them for water management, aiming
to anticipate long-term climate change developments over a 50-100 year period. The methodology succeeded
in securing broad stakeholder support for the revised plan and improved stakeholder confidence and trust in
the local Water Control Board as an entity. The entire process lasted 36 months, thus highlighting the resource
intensity of wide-ranging stakeholder engagement.
EPSA2015101 Room for the River, a project from Rijkswaterstaat, an executive agency of the Ministry of
Infrastructure and the Environment, resulted from an anticipated future need, because of expected climate
32 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / European/National/Regional administrative level

change, to address flooding risks by developing alternative means to those of reinforcing dykes. This includes for
example relocating dykes, deepening flood plains (overflow areas) next to major rivers and by digging secondary
water discharge channels. The project thus relates to a high priority policy area in the Netherlands i.e. flood
protection. The success of the project is founded on technical excellence in civil engineering. However the key
methodology used in the project, which is in a policy area of significant importance in the Netherlands, is one
of intensive and wide-ranging stakeholder engagement, including of other functions of national government,
sub-national government, regional water authorities, NGOs and businesses, farmers and citizens. Stakeholder
engagement, leading to co-creation of solutions within strategic context of safety objectives, timing and funding
set by government, has been embedded in the project, which, given the time and cost needed to be invested by
the public sector in this project, also illustrates the need to ensure that a co-creation approach to service delivery
is subject to appropriate cost-benefit analysis. The project has also been informed by EU-wide exchange of best
practices and experiences via participation in EU INTERREG exchange programmes such as ‘Flood Resilient
cities’ (FRC) and Adaptive Land Use for Flood Alleviation’ (ALFA).
The EPSA2015219 River Bed Vegetation Map, a project which is also from Rijkswaterstaat, complements the
“Room for the River” project described above in that it also aims to address flooding risks, which, as noted above,
is a high priority policy area in the Netherlands. The aim of the project is to identify the risk of flooding arising
from unchecked development of vegetation in river flood plains, initially by preparing river bed vegetation maps.
It forms the basis for future vegetation management measures.
The key methodology used in this project is extensive stakeholder engagement (including the use of online
and off-line consultation) from the start of the project, including from nature management organisations, who
co-designed the specification for the mapping process, and also with the many private landowners and tenants
who own and occupy much of the land in the flood plains. The draft river bed vegetation map was submitted to
stakeholders for consultation, including confirmation of accuracy relating to their property. This approach both
improved the quality of the river bed vegetation map and gained stakeholder support for its purpose. The model
has the potential to be transferred to other types of infrastructure project where infrastructure is being renewed.
The EPSA2015173 Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) is an EU-financed co-
operative venture between 7 EU Member States underpinned by an inter-governmental treaty between them
to monitor and intercept attempted maritime incursions by narcotics traffickers, principally in the Atlantic and
the Western Mediterranean. The Centre uses law enforcement and military personnel from partner countries
who are co-located with, and work together with, staff from MAOC-N. Member States thus both make financial
contributions and second staff. The key methodology in this project is promotion of networking, exchange of best
practices and knowledge transfer across Europe, including with other EU agencies such as Frontex, Europol and
the European Maritime Safety Agency. The project is linked to an issue of major policy importance at EU level -
addressing cross-border crime - in which EU-co-ordinated action is likely to be significantly more effective and
represent better value for money (cost/outcome ratio) than action by individual Member States. It is potentially
transferable to other EU policy domains, including, in the context of the 2015 migration crisis, in dealing with
people trafficking. It could also potentially be extended to other domains, such as for example defence and
security capability, where it might be beneficial for EU Member States to accept the lead role of a small number
of Member States in implementing a policy of common interest, particularly where there are special capabilities
in that domain.
The public sector throughout Europe has to innovate, modernise and adapt to social, economic and governance
challenges with a view to identify issues and solutions for reforms which can shape and deliver the relevant policy
related targets. It is necessary to unleash a new digital public service ecosystem acting as a bridge encouraging
open innovation across a range of actors. This requires innovation at institutional, process and service level.
This EPSA edition recognises a high number of innovative eGovernment best practice case in relation to different
aspects of eGovernance. The cases described below are clustered around four aspects:
1. One-stop-shops and online single information and access points;

2. Physical one-stop-shops and points of single access to bridge the digital divide;
3. Portals allowing self-assessment, benchmarks and certification; and
4. eHealth and user-empowerment.

3.3.1. One-stop-shops and online single information and access points
The EPSA2015047 BQ-Portal – The Information Portal for Foreign Professional Qualifications, submitted
by Germany and sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, is an online platform to
consolidate all relevant information on the equivalence of a wide range of foreign vocational training systems
and individual foreign professional qualifications using a single database. The online platform provides detailed
and quality assured information regarding foreign vocational training systems, the substance and duration of
individual vocational training programmes and the legal basis on which they are offered. The aim is both to reduce
the time taken to assessing equivalence of qualifications and improve the quality of the equivalence assessment.
The portal benefits (potential) employers who can now gain a better understanding of what a particular set of
foreign professional qualifications actually entails and how they compare to German qualifications. It aims to
simplify the process for job seekers to understand the status of their foreign qualifications in Germany and gain
recognition for them. It gives practical effect to the 2012 Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Professional
Qualifications Act, which significantly widened the legal rights of foreign job seekers to have their qualifications
assessed for equivalence.
The project is innovative in that there were no other models to adapt from other public administrations in this field
at national or European level. It addresses an issue of high level political importance in Germany (addressing
skills shortages) and the EU (mutual recognition of qualifications). More generally, it sends a
strong political signal that Germany, a key motor of growth in the Eurozone, aims to sustain
its economic performance by being open to accommodating and integrating migrant workers.
The key methodology used is the Drupal content management system which creates a common
platform for knowledge sharing. The key success factors include the robustness of the ICT
systems used to gather data collected and the contribution of implementing organisations (such as employers’
associations) to undertake assessments. These organisations have devoted significant resources to ensuring that
they make their contribution to the equivalence assessment process and thus optimise benefits from the portal.
Within this context, the concept is potentially transferable to other environments.
The portal has to date (September 2015) delivered significant output-related results such as number of country
profiles (73) and number of professional profiles (1300+) and high level of user satisfaction (based on a recent
evaluation, 90% of those surveyed say that the BQ-portal enables consistent, transparent and rapid assessment
of foreign qualifications). Applicants pay a fee for the assessment of the equivalence of their qualifications of
between €100 and €600, based on the time taken for assessment, though there is no evidence of this constituting
a barrier to assessment and in some cases part of costs (for residents) paid by third parties e.g. the Bundesagentur
für Arbeit.
EPSA2015167 ALF (Child Benefit without Application) is a co-operative project between the Federal Ministries
of Finance and of Families and Youth in Austria to reduce the administrative burden on citizens, reduce the burden
on staff and save administrative costs by automating the collection of data to assess the entitlement of new
parents to child benefit, the process of assessment itself and the generation of payments. In doing so, it fits within
wider Federal policy objectives. A potential entitlement to child benefit is system-generated from the issue of a
birth certificate in the central register of births, marriages and deaths, which generates a data flow to the systems
of the Finance Ministry and thus depends on the integration of systems from different government ministries.
The key methodology used is a no-stop-shop solution (not common in public administrations). Thus the project
was innovative in the sense of not having other models within other public administrations in this field to adapt.
It eliminates the necessity for new parents to make an application for getting child benefit after childbirth.
The predicted time savings for citizens - estimated to be 39,000 hours per year for 80,000 births (i.e. 30 minutes
on average) - seems to be conservatively estimated. The project also promotes social inclusion since automatic
generation of entitlement reduces the risk of exclusion as a result of intellectual or linguistic capability. By reducing
staff time needed to process applications it enables them to be redeployed to perform other tasks, such as
entitlement control functions and to other functions within the tax administration. The estimated savings for the
ALF project are 15 FTE staff, but the intention is not that the saving in staff time will lead to redundancies.
Thus it has not in itself to date generated significant concerns for labour unions. The concept is capable of being
used in other environments irrespective of language or culture for universal benefits (e.g. not subject to income
declaration criteria) and uniformly paid i.e. where recipients are not able to choose how they receive services or
benefits. This could be applied elsewhere at national level, or, via a shared service platform, for a universal benefit

paid by all sub-national entities within a territory.
The project has high level political support from the Finance and Family and Youth Ministers - political support has
been an important component of many successful past EPSA projects.
It is an example of new ICT applications within an appropriately robust ICT environment acting as a facilitator
for process change, capable of managing automatic data exchange and rules-based calculations without human
intervention. In this case they are also underpinned by an appropriate legal basis for data transfers. The project
was implemented within seven months using agile software, validating the prototype with users at a time when
changes could still be incorporated and with skills transfer to public sector to underpin the sustainability of the
project through close co-operation between ICT staff from the Federal Computing Centre and the external
experts developing the software. Results from live running since June 2015 to early September 2015 have been
impressive with a 3% error rate and average time of application processing of 2 days, with automatic payment in
50% of cases and in 45% of remaining cases requiring no more than bank account details.
An example on how to provide online information and access to best practices via a range of online channels for
businesses is the EPSA2015131 NetRegs, a co-operative project by the Scottish Government and the Northern
Ireland Executive, which are territorial administrations within the United Kingdom with defined devolved functions.
The specific focus is particularly SMEs, who need to comply with environmental regulations and thus reduce
the burdens on business in complying with those regulations. The approach used is that of a one-stop online
portal providing customised sector-specific information, including via eLearning tools, and to provide companies
with access to the portal anonymously via an online compliance self–assessment and feedback tool. It is based
on voluntary cooperation between separate public administrations for mutual benefit rather than arising from
legislative obligation. The project also engages with external stakeholders via a Business Advisory Group
comprising key business and trade associations as well as individual businesses and by drawing expertise from
several specialisms is able to provide comprehensive information in a single location.
Another case facilitating SME support is EPSA2015148 Domain-Transcending Standardisation with Standard
Business Reporting (SBR) submitted by the digital government service of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and
Kingdom Relations. The project aims to improve the quality of decision-making by improving the quality of data on
which the decisions are based and to reduce administrative burdens on business which could arise from diversity
of the form and means of data exchange. In this example the key methodology used is the introduction of data
definitions, processes and technologies based on open data standards for the exchange of financial information
such as tax returns and financial accounts between government and business. The project highlights the role of
ICT applications as facilitators for innovation and has significant potential for transferability to other environments.
It is based on cross-government co-operation between several ministries and agencies and also co-operation with
companies, trade associations and professional bodies in the field of taxation and accountancy. It also enables
the Netherlands to participate in international communities of practice relating to Standard Business Reporting.
It is also used by the government to supply aggregated data to trade associations, thus underpinning the idea that
information is an asset owned in common and not the sole property of government.
EPSA2015234 Citizen Portal (Portal do Cidadão) a project from the Portuguese Agency
for Administrative Modernisation and EPSA2015150 The Citizen’s Guide of the Region of
Epirus submitted by the Regional Government of Epirus in Greece are two best practices for
improved service delivery to citizens.
The Citizen Portal (Portal do Cidadão) aims to facilitate access to a wide range of public services for citizens,
including on mobile devices. It is a later generation of citizen and business portals developed in the 2000s and
serves both stakeholder groups, providing enhanced functionality organised around life episodes with ease of
use from key word based searches, thematic clusters of needs similar to those searched and intuitive assistance
based on frequency of demand for services (which demonstrates the intelligent learning capability of the system).
The key solution is a one-stop-shop for services provided by public authorities both at national and sub-national
level, and also by private sector entities, supported by a powerful and flexible ICT platform based on secure key
log-in. The system aims to be evolutionary, facilitating improvement via user feedback. It provides an alternative
channel for resolution of service failure to that of direct contact with service providers. Open access to end-user
feedback is a key component of best practice in management of public contracts, in which the task of ensuring
that promised service standards are achieved is as far as possible shared between end-users and a public body’s
contract management function i.e. co-management of services. The concept is thus capable of being transferred
to other environments.

The Citizen’s Guide of the Region of Epirus aims to map administrative procedures used to provide services to
citizens with the aim of providing better information about the availability of services and ultimately to improve the
quality of services. The key solution is that of a single portal for citizens to access services, thus improving access
to services by those whose access may be limited by disability, lack of transport or geographical remoteness.
The portal is supported by a software application aggregating underlying source data (e.g. legal aspects, cost
of compliance, accompanying documents, process maps etc.) on open source software and facilitating process
re-engineering. For citizens as end users it offers features such as key word and thematic searches, ability to
evaluate services, voice reading of the website, live chat and the ability to add procedures. The project was
implemented almost exclusively by personnel of the Regional Government of Epirus, thus representing a model
of public sector provision, an option for public sector bodies not wishing to delegate all ICT services. The concept
has clear potential for transferability to other public sector entities in Greece and in other EU Member States.
In the area of eJustice it is worth mentioning the case EPSA2015058 Justice 3.0/eJustice from the Austrian
Federal Ministry of Justice aimed to further enhance the automation of justice by facilitating multi-user digital
file management. It continues a pattern of use of ICT to improve justice services in Austria initiated in the 1990s,
and responded to the need to develop new generations of applications in a context of budgetary constraint.
The key elements of this project are a combination of effective project management of the modernisation of ICT
platforms and re-engineering work processes and work allocation, including the wider use of remote collaborative
working, simultaneous multi-user access and multi-device access. The project is an example of continuing self-
improvement by a service which is already widely regarded as an example of good practice in the use of ICT, but
which seeks not to be complacent. It is also an example of the benefits of extensive use of employees and external
professionals in the co-design of services. It is capable of being transferred to other justice systems, subject to the
need to ensure that robust data security protocols are in place in ICT systems reflecting the sensitivity of the data
held, appropriate productivity tools and a culture of trust in employees to achieve outputs while working remotely.
The project EPSA2015260 Public Geo Datasets at your Service (PDOK) submitted by the Dutch Land Registry
and Mapping Agency aims to provide free of charge, reliable and up to date geodata sets via a single portal capable
of being converted into maps (including embedding aerial photos) and capable of being enhanced by geodata
by users such as national and sub-national public sector entities, municipalities, businesses, schools and private
citizens. The key methodology for this project is a one-stop shop for all users based on use of latest generation
geodata applications. The key concept is that of open data as a means to simulate innovation and improvement
in public services, one example being improved predictions of flood damage in Amsterdam. The initiative, which
took initially four years to develop and significant resource allocation, shows a high level of voluntary co-operative
working between different government ministries. It is designed to be used by those without specialist mapping
skills and to make the services accessible to those with visual impairments. Since it is compatible with national
and international standards, including the European INSPIRE standards, it is capable of acting as the basis for
use in other environments and for other services. It is also scalable to higher levels of usage. It is available to
educational and private users without a user agreement, formal requirement for registration or other contractual
arrangements, though these users are expected informally to respect fair access principles and have no right to
expect a contractually agreed level of service.
3.3.2. Physical one-stop-shops and points of single access to bridge the digital divide
The best practice case EPSA2015264 Administrative Reform in Hungary: One-Stop-Shop Government
Windows as the Initiation of Equal Access to Public Services submitted by the Prime Minister’s Office forms
part of a programme of administrative reform in Hungary to improve the quality of service delivery to citizens and
improve citizens’ access to services. They provide both information to citizens but also enable online access
to services, such as completion of applications for services and permits. The project provides a solution for
establishment of a nationwide network of physical one-stop-shops (“Government Windows”), including mobile
venues, bringing services close to citizens and, via local agents, to those unable to visit venues for health reasons.
One key element in this project is its recognition that the success of this methodology is based not merely on the
integration of services but also on the need for sufficient resourcing. This is consistent with the idea that service
integration and process re-engineering may have different financial implications in different environments and that
service improvement may, in some circumstances, require additional resources.

The EPSA2015163 Citizen Spot (Espaço do Cidadão) submitted by the Portuguese Agency for Administrative
Modernisation, is a single service desk aiming to simplify the interaction between the citizen and the state.
It aims to create a country-wide network of 1000 “Citizen Spots”, to optimise the effective wide range of available
online services provided by a wide range of partner organisations including national and sub-national government,
the third sector, industry associations and other entities providing public services. The project demonstrates an
evolution of a digital one-stop-shop concept, building on Portugal’s experience in this field since 1997, but with
the additional feature of face-to-face support at the “Citizen Spot” by the use of trained staff. They are able to
guide citizens, particularly those who are not comfortable in an online environment, who need help to understand
what service is available and how it can be accessed and assisting them while they actually access the service.
3.3.3. Portals allowing self-assessment, benchmarks and certification
The three best practices presented below are examples of portals allowing self-assessment, benchmarks and
certification and that all provide advantages of replicability and widespread empowerment and self-responsibility.
EPSA2015111 OiRA – Online interactive Risk Assessment tool is a project launched by the European Agency
for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA) to simplify the process of health and safety at work assessment, with
the particular aim of facilitating the process for SMEs, thus ultimately leading to a reduction in the number of
occupational accidents, sickness and instances of mental health problems. It provides self-assessment tools
for different economic sectors and, by making it easier for SMEs to undertake assessments, it can particularly
benefit workers at higher risk, both by the nature of their work or age, linguistic or intellectual capacity. The project
demonstrates the use of an online platform (free of charge for end-users) for assessment and possible solutions to
risks identified, replacing the traditional approach of paper assessment. The platform can also
be used as an eLearning tool by enterprises to cascade awareness within organisations. The
website is also used as a means of disseminating information about health and safety issues.
The project has a wide range of stakeholders from several Member States and organisations
representing the social partners engaged in the co-design as well as the application of the
tool. It is an example of adaptive innovation, having been developed from a risk assessment
approach developed in the Netherlands.
The project from Portugal’s Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation EPSA2015249 Online Certification of
Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) aims to provide an electronic service which enables SMEs to
obtain free of charge electronic certification that they meet the qualifying criteria as micro, small or medium-sized
enterprises. The certification is legally valid and can only be obtained by this process. It is the means by which
Portugal aims to comply with EU Recommendation 2003/361/EC on the definition of SME status.
The solution is a digital one-stop-shop to enable SMEs to confirm their compliance status with a single paperless
interaction, based on data submitted by the enterprise without validation at the point of submission but subject
to audit. The process is also simplified for SMEs because they need only to submit information via an electronic
form, to which the ICT application applies a rules-based calculation of status. Thus it simplifies the regulatory
burden on SMEs. It can be accessed online by entities who need to know the status of an enterprise to give effect
to actions aimed at benefitting SMEs. Being based in EU Recommendation 2003/361/EC on the definition of SME
status the methodology has the potential for transferability to other EU Member States. It is an example of digital
transformation by closure of other channels, which may have wider application over time to other services, subject
to considerations of complexity and the need to avoid digital exclusion.
EPSA2015122 Latvia’s e-index, a project from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development,
is based on a wide-ranging evaluation of the state of digital development of public sector bodies at national and
sub-national level. The aim was to develop indicators for the evaluation of eGovernment implementation and to
develop a methodology for assessing progress.
The key methodology used was a survey of 103 state institutions and 119 municipalities, enhanced by desk
research and interviews with experts. Participation by municipalities was voluntary and secured by intensive
cooperation with associations representing regions, cities and other municipalities. For individual respondents the
process enabled them to recognise their state of development and, using best practice examples implemented by
other institutions and internationally, to assess their future development plans.

3.3.4. eHealth and user-empowerment
EPSA2015239 Portuguese Health Data Platform (HDP) is a project from the Ministry of Health, submitted by
its Shared Services entity, which aims to improve access to information about health services to citizens and their
access to those services in addition to facilitating the provision of those services by health care professionals.
The key methodology used is the provision of information via four separate portals for patients, health care
professionals and health care institutions and also an international portal for projects where Portugal is co-operating
internationally. The ICT platform incorporates electronic patient records capability for health care professionals, and
online processing of appointments and requests for medication renewals by patients. The project’s implementation
was driven by government administrative order but required a high degree of co-operation between a wide range of
stakeholders and extensive sharing of information between clinical systems to be realised.
EPSA2015100 Navarra’s Integrated Chronic Care Strategy (ICSS) via quadruple helix
collaboration from the Department of Health of the Regional Government of Navarra in Spain
aims to re-engineer health care processes within the region to improve the quality of clinical
services, eliminate duplicated processes and thus reduce costs in the treatment of chronic
diseases. It is based on multi-dimensional evaluation of patients (clinical, social, functional and psychological)
and categorisation of intensity of need (low, medium and high severity) and priority of needs. The project applies
a patient-centred approach to health care delivery by the development of individual care plans. It is supported
by an electronic patient record system accessible to staff responsible for the patient. The key element of the
methodology of this project was the effective engagement with its own professional staff, often neglected as key
stakeholders in public entities, in reshaping services and thus represents an innovative approach. This project is
also consistent with the promotion of sound public finance with the potential to reduce costs in a sector recognised
to be facing significant demand pressures, in particular in the treatment of chronic diseases.
The following two projects are inspiring practices of personalised services based on new ICT.
EPSA2015152 Paradigm Change in the Communication Strategy – Increasing Customer Value and Potential
Savings with Customer-focused Information and eGovernment Solutions Instead of Mass Communication
is a project from the Family Affairs Department of the Land government of Upper Austria aiming to facilitate access
to welfare entitlements and other services which it provides, replacing current methods such as plastic cards
offering discounts and paper education vouchers. The project means that, for example, education vouchers are
managed through a digital educational account, information about services are sent to users via a mobile phone
app, users will be able to have an electronic card via their mobile phone and entitlements arising at different times
in a child’s life will be notified to citizens.
This project is thus based on up-to-date technologies, requiring enabling ICT changes within the public
administration to facilitate a more citizen-focused culture of service based on service personalisation leading to
savings in production costs and processing time for the Land administration.
The Spanish project EPSA2015194 Tourism Logistic Platform is led by the Balearic Islands Tourism Agency, the
public agency responsible for promoting tourism in the Balearic Islands. It aims to improve the tourist experience
and thus to sustain the region’s status as a leading European tourist venue. It is supported by the three relevant
levels of public administration in the region i.e. municipal, island and regional. The key methodology is a one-stop-
shop driven by new ICT platforms as a facilitator to improved service delivery and incorporating service demand
modelling. This is used, for example, to provide real time information about facilities and services available, to
customise service offers to visitors based on factors such as their origin and date of visit and to provide virtual
assistance to them to access the services. The approach is innovative in the sense that it aims to include the
entire scope of the tourist experience from planning to ex-post feedback and to differentiate between the needs of
tourists, residents, local businesses and investors.
The EPSA 2015 edition can also show examples of how innovative (ICT) solutions can enable personalised
services targeted to specific groups. The following four projects – one from Sweden and three from Austria – are
best practices on how services can be tailored to the needs of specific vulnerable groups.
EPSA2015241 Available Cinema is a project of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority and the Swedish Film
Institute to improve accessibility of films to citizens who are dyslexic, visually impaired or functionally illiterate

and thus to promote social inclusion. It is technology-driven using a system of audio description, by which
events and settings in a film are verbally described and read alongside the dialogue and other sounds in the film.
This is enabled via one of a number of apps downloaded to the user’s smartphone. The application of this concept
is based on open technical platforms and is transferable to other languages and cultures.
EPSA2015036 Right from the Start, a project from the Upper Austria Health Insurance Fund, aims to provide
expectant and new parents with comprehensive information from a wide range of specialisms on a broad range
of issues relating to the physical and mental health and social care of children at a time of a significant life
change for them. The information is provided free of charge irrespective of insurance status. The key methodology
used is that of free workshops in a range of topics for expectant and new parents. Information is also provided
via a guidebook and newsletters and DVDs available in several languages. The provision of information is
supplemented by outreach support for families with additional needs, and is thus an example of how entities can
address both provision of information and supportive action. The application of this concept of comprehensive
support for expectant and new parents requires a high degree of co-operative working between health and social
care professionals, co-operative decision making and support from entities such as the Federal Ministry of Health,
hospitals within Upper Austria and the Federal Agency for Health and Nutrition, including the quality assurance
of the information provided. It underpins the concept, capable of transfer to other areas of public policy such as
education and prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour, that early intervention can improve later outcomes
and is thus justifiable in cost terms.
EPSA2015127 Sensitisation for Climate Protection Measures in Daily Life – Workshop for Female Migrants
is a project from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
aiming to improve the social integration of female migrants to Austria and was developed in partnership with a
long-established third party which provides support for migrants. The key methodology used is the provision of
information workshops, using a range of learning approaches, on how to integrate environmental sensitivity into
daily life such as when cooking and shopping. The workshops focus on social and linguistic skills and aim to be
inclusive both by being available in several migrant languages and to a broad age range. The objectives of this
project have gained an increased political profile given the higher level of expected migration to
Austria in 2015 and future years.
EPSA2015094 Chatroom of the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services

is a project submitted by the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services in order
to improve counselling services to students and provide information for potential students.
It provides psychological counselling services online as an alternative to face-to-face services. Given that the
provision of psychological counselling addresses a key challenge often faced by students, it is capable of being
transferred to other European contexts, and more widely particularly where there are no cultural barriers to the
concept of counselling. The key methodology used is that of an online chatroom. It aims to promote inclusiveness
by reaching those who might otherwise be limited in their access to counselling for reasons such as impaired
mobility, social adeptness, family circumstances, geographical location or linguistic capability, in the latter case
by also providing sessions in English, and by the possibility of reference to other services in other languages. Its
success derives from taking account of privacy of sensitive data and data security and embraces new technology
in that the service follow-up is also available via smartphones. It also provides greater flexibility in that services
can be provided for a wider range of hours than can be provided by face-to-face counselling. It has potential for
transferability to other services, including other social care and health services.
3.4 Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches
The challenge for European public administrations is to develop the ability to master innovation processes.
They need to accelerate the strategic use of innovation processes and to build the necessary organisational
environments which can authorise innovation in practice. Innovation often involves new approaches to cooperation
with external institutions as well as new approach for including staff in development of new solutions. Leaders
who want to drive their organisations to successfully implement and coordinate innovation approaches to new
service delivery need to strategically embed strong links between Human Resource Management and innovation
policies. Furthermore, innovation requires new skills of staff, e.g. entrepreneurship, new ways of cooperation with
other institutions and clients. It is necessary for the HRM system to develop a culture which fosters staff innovation
and to develop the new required skills that are needed to master innovation processes and at the same time to
establish new organisational structures that enable new solutions, new processes and better results in the public
service delivery.

EPSA2015153 A Wealth of Ideas (IdéRiget) is a project from the university hospital in Copenhagen (Rigshospitalet)
aiming at changing the clinical practice at a Denmark’s largest university hospital by creating a culture which
fosters innovative thinking. One outcome has been the development of patient-centred cancer services with, for
example, more opportunities for home-based treatment through devices which provide mobile clinical services
through wireless connection with hospital-based equipment and more interactive engagement with patients. The
key element of the methodology was the effective engagement with its own professional staff, often neglected
as key stakeholders in public entities, in reshaping clinical services and thus represents an innovative approach
in health care. The project uses a challenge-based approach, with proposed ideas bidding for approval and
resourcing for further elaboration, with the two most promising ideas being supported both financially and with
management time for implementation. The success of the project required both significant training for clinical staff
and a recognition that fostering a culture of innovation requires mainstreaming i.e. that innovation is not most
effectively fostered as a niche activity but requires an entity to be willing to invest staff time within working hours
in innovation and to enable staff to develop and prototype innovative ideas both by empowerment and financial
resources. It also demonstrates that the link between innovative thinking and implementation is not automatic
and requires a structured process of capturing innovative thinking. The project fits well within
the widely recognised context of the need to optimise the use of in-patient capacity, reduce
costs, reduce the risk that patients will contract hospital-based diseases and improving health
outcomes insofar as patients may be less psychologically displaced in their home environment.
The project from the Education Development Centre in Lithuania, EPSA2015255 Development
of Lifelong Learning Opportunities in Rural Areas aims to improve the quality of public services and strengthen
social cohesion in rural areas of Lithuania. This is to be achieved by enhancing the capability of multi-service
centres which have been and continue to be created by municipalities in rural areas for the provision of public
services to citizens. One specific aim is the better co-ordination of the provision of educational, cultural and social
services, within the context of the need to expand life-long learning opportunities for citizens and promote their
labour market participation and thus to contribute to local economic growth.
The key methodology used is the creation of network of local multi-functional centres, capacity building through
community needs analysis, staff training and activity planning. One key feature was that, while there was a need
to develop a shared understanding of the role of multi-functional centres, there would not be a “one size fits all”
operational model to be adopted uniformly by all multi-functional centres. The project required a high degree of
cooperation between entities at national level and extensive dialogue with municipalities. The project fits with a
policy objective common to many countries of reducing the urban-rural divide within the country and discouraging
rural depopulation.
The project from the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior EPSA2015168 Police Competence Training aims
to embed awareness and practical implementation of human rights considerations into police practice in Austria,
including legal and social considerations arising in interventions in family environments. The key methodology
used is that of a range of training techniques, including incident-based simulations and the idea of further self-
learning, to prepare police officers for a wide range of potential situations. It is also likely to have the effect of
mainstreaming awareness of key considerations in interventions in family environments, rather than it being
treated as a specialist service. External stakeholders in civil society and educational research were used to inform
the design and provision of the training. The concept is clearly capable of adaptation to different environments,
both within the practice of policing and also as a model for both co-design of training with stakeholders and
mainstreaming of specialist services.
The importance of public expenditure in the EU economy has risen since the crisis and public spending now
accounts for almost half of GDP each year. Public spending patterns differ greatly across the EU reflecting
national preferences and political decisions. Ensuring that public money is spent wisely and effectively relies on
clear public policy priorities and is one of the major lessons of the crisis. Productive public investment and current
expenditure which promote growth should be prioritised. The European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI
Funds) 2014-2020 supporting the delivery of EUROPE 2020 targets have a stronger result-orientation which is a
key for the ability of the Managing Authorities to ensure efficient funds management.

EPSA2015105 Challenge-Driven Innovation – Societal Challenges as Growth Opportunities is a project
implemented by Sweden’s innovation agency, VINNOVA. It aims to address key social challenges such as
improved health care, sustainable and attractive cities, better direct access of citizens to services and improved
competitiveness of commercial sectors. The policy instrument, Challenge-Driven Innovation, invites applications
for projects which address these challenges innovatively, thus promoting economic growth, better service delivery
and sustainable development. The Challenge-Driven Innovation programme uses a phased approach, in which
public finance is targeted towards the early stages of the project, thus assuming a higher element of initial risk,
but, as the project progresses from studies to applied research to implementation, applicants, such as enterprises
and universities, bear an increasing share of the costs. It is based on the well-established public sector principle
of challenge funding i.e. competitive bidding for funds and progression from one stage to the next is not automatic.
All projects must be based on demonstrated end-user demand consistent with service objectives i.e. end-users
must be actively engaged in the funded projects from an early stage. More generally, it also has the potential to
provide a model for reshaping the distribution of EU funds in domains such as European Structural and Investment
Funds (ESIF) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (ESFI) where there is a need
to align distribution priorities with an ex ante assessment that projects will achieve their policy
and operational objectives.
EPSA2015009 Global Find is promoted by Global Parques, whose main shareholder is the
Portuguese Business Development Agency, a publicly owned entity. It aims to promote foreign
direct investment by providing free of charge access to online information via a single portal about potentially
suitable sites available for acquisition and development by foreign investors wishing to establish enterprises in
Portugal. It aims to simplify the preliminary choice of location by potential investors by making it easy for them to
obtain base information about locations such as area available, whether or not the site is brownfield or greenfield,
transport infrastructure, research facilities, educational institutions, levels of educational attainment and services
provided by other companies in or near to the location. It plans to expand its reach to other information which may
be of relevance to potential investors, such as availability of health care services. The key methodology used is
a multi-lingual, up-to-date GIS platform and search engine to enable investors free of charge via search queries
to find a site in a business park in Portugal which meets their project requirements and, should they require it,
follow-up support by email and consultancy services to develop site acquisition solutions. It was based on wide-
ranging co-operative working between public and private sector entities to provide the content. It fits closely with
Portugal’s need to address the significant pressures on public finances and the need to re-stabilise them not
merely through fiscal measures but also by promoting economic growth so the project is consistent with the reality
that in the medium term the recovery of the EU economy from the current crisis can only be sustained by a return
to growth. In particular, it promotes Portugal as an investment destination, including through promotion of clusters.
It has clear potential for transferability both for promotion of opportunities to potential investors in other contexts
in Portugal, such as for the tourism sector, or in other territories.
The project from the Institute for Construction and Real Estate (Instituto da Construção e Imobiliário) EPSA2015208
Public Contracts Portal (BASE) aims to build on Portugal’s significant experience in the field of eProcurement as a
tool for promoting competition and generating savings to enable Portugal to render its public finances sustainable.
It is an online portal providing information for potential bidders and citizens generally about procurement
opportunities and concluded contracts. It also provides statistical information on contracts awarded, by type of
procedure, by contractual value (for higher value contracts), and by date (for the most recent ones awarded)
including contract amendments above 15% of the contract value. This grouped information can be aggregated
by time and location and data can be customized via user queries. The key methodology used by the portal is
transparency in the award of public contracts, by which it aims to enhance trust in government. The system’s
analytical capability also enables public bodies to track expenditure, and thus better control it. It may also assist
public sector auditors to better prioritise their time towards higher value and higher risk contracts, two indications
of which are the use of contracts directly awarded and with a high frequency of contract amendments. The portal
is also an instrument by which what is widely regarded (for example by the European Commission, the Court of
Justice of the European Union and many procurement practitioners) as one key abuse in public procurement can
be addressed i.e. inappropriate use of legal justifications for the failure to advertise public contracts which should
have been advertised (i.e. direct awards). Payments for public contracts directly awarded without advertisement
cannot be made until the details of the contracts have been given on the portal. Similarly, the requirement to
publish contract amendments above 15% of the contract value is stricter in scope than the provisions on contract
modification in the most recently enacted EU Public Procurement Directives (e.g. Directive 2014/24/EU) and thus
addresses a frequent abuse in the execution of public contracts.

Another Swedish project, EPSA2015103 SABOs Kombohus – Forcing Prices Down to Raise Public Housing
Construction is a collaborative procurement initiative by Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies
(SABO) to reduce the cost of construction of municipal housing and thus to address housing shortages. Pre-
designed and partly pre-fabricated housing units are supplied at a fixed price to municipalities. Construction costs
have been reduced by 25%. The key procurement methodology used is the application of centralised purchasing
to bring about savings through potentially higher order volumes for construction companies and reduced bid
costs for them through the use of a limited number of framework agreements. The reduction in costs, and also
improvement in quality assurance, has been achieved by greater standardisation of design. This was based on
close dialogue between the public sector and construction companies, thus providing an example of active market
management through public sector intervention, an approach which, suitably adapted, may have potentially wider
lessons for both complex procurements (such as for infrastructure) and for the regulation of liberalised services.
EPSA2015224 Green Jobs Programme (Programa Empleaverde) is a project from the Biodiversity Foundation
of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment. It provides grants to projects to enable businesses
to be launched, investment attracted, revenues earned, employment created, self-employment facilitated,
environmental sustainability promoted and the availability of skills in the sustainable use of the biodiversity and
the environment enhanced. By promoting economic growth the project is consistent with the reality that in the
medium term the recovery of the EU economy from the current crisis can only be sustained by a return to growth.
By promoting green growth it also underlines the contribution that environmental technologies can make to growth
and the potential compatibility of the promotion of growth with continuing to address the climate change agenda.
Two key elements of this project are its inclusive and collaborative nature. The range of organisations supported
by the project includes public sector bodies, labour unions, business and education sector entities and NGOs and
also a Green Business Network with 7000 members (entrepreneurs and eco-investors).
EPSA2015196 Programme for the Internationalisation of the Third Social Sector and Social and Cooperative
Economy of Catalonia from Spain was launched by the Catalan Business Competitiveness Support Agency
(ACCIÓ) in partnership with the Platform of the Third Social Sector of Catalonia (La Taula del Tercer Sector).
The third sector’s role in Catalonia is consistent with that often played by the third sector i.e. providing services to
citizens who are disadvantaged, such as children and young people with social needs, older people, people with
disabilities or those disadvantaged on grounds of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or economic deprivation
etc. Third sector services are generally provided on a territorial basis. This project is innovative in that it aims to
use the networks of ACCIO, created to assist the private sector, and particularly SMEs, to enable the third social
sector in Catalonia to export its services outside Catalonia by transferring its knowledge and successful social
intervention models to other regions and countries. It also aims, by earning income externally, to underpin the
sustainability of its territorial services at a time of budgetary constraints.


4. Conclusions
Since 2009, EIPA has aimed at making use of the EPSA scheme to highlight the key trends in public administration
across Europe and the way in which public administrations are addressing concrete challenges at a given point
in time.
The inspirational and working solutions of the 2015 edition of the EPSA show that many challenges, which were
already present in the 2013 edition, maintain. These include historically low levels of growth in this century,
increasing competitive pressures from outside Europe, constraints on public finances, pressures on demand for
services (for example, in demand of affordable social housing and the consequences of high unemployment –
partly driven by the economic circumstances) and lack of confidence in both the ability and the legitimacy of public
entities at all levels to address the challenges. A clear new challenge moved into the centre of public attention in
2015, which is the refugees’ crisis that has turned into a humanitarian crisis and calls for both urgent actions and
more long-term strategies by public administrations. This is reflected in a range of projects submitted to the EPSA
2015 under both categories which aim at a better (labour market) integration of migrants.
With the overarching topic “The Public Sector as Partner for a Better Society” and the current public sector
reform trends and discourse, it does not come as a surprise that more than half of the submissions were placed
under the public administration, modernisation, institutional affairs and reform. However, what is different from
previous editions is the fact that one fourth of all submissions comes from the public health and social welfare
sectors, followed by education and ICT-, audiovisual- and media-related sectors. These numbers are relatively
equal across the two administrative categories, which shows that the challenges faced are pressing issues across
administrative layers. In general, EPSA 2015 illustrates a high focus on solutions for improved efficiency and
effectiveness in the social policy field, a sector that is crucial for society, but also very cost-intensive, and the
continuation of ICT as a strong enabler in public sector reform and innovation.
Under the EPSA 2015 theme, the cooperation and partnership elements of projects were highlighted and visible
in the majority of applications. The wide span of cooperation models ranging from fund-management to policy-
making, breaking down institutional silos and linking small islands of initiatives in vertical, horizontal and cross-
sectoral cooperation was impressive. They enabled comprehensive back-office re-engineering processes for
better service delivery, coherent strategy and policy formulation and the combination of policy fields leading
to holistic actions and projects. Triple or quadruple helix models and thus true cross-sectoral partnerships can
equally be considered a norm. It was also visible that creative cooperation took place where governments were
involved in communication and cooperation beyond legislative obligations. This out-of-the-box thinking is the way
to go forward and harvest the fruits of innovation.
It can also be observed that roughly 75% of the submitted applications in both administrative categories come
from organisations with equal to or more than 100 full time employed (FTE) staff, suggesting that – similar to
previous EPSA editions – bigger ins titutions may have more resources to undergo reform (even though pressures
are equally faced by smaller entities) and/or that bigger entities may be more likely to invest resources in order
to showcase their achievements. However, innovative and working practices span all levels and all sizes of
public entities. In the case of small municipalities or agencies, joint solutions are often developed in horizontal
cooperation to reach economies of scale (e.g. joint public procurement).
EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Conclusions 43

The following key messages emerge with a special focus on the analysis of the 2015 best practice examples:
1. Increasing facilitator and enabler role of governments

As a general trend, the 2015 best practices clearly showed the increasing role of government as facilitator or in an
enabling role bringing together different parties to enhance service delivery or its role as a partner in bottom-up
projects initiated by civil society. This enabling role is not connected to generally providing financial assistance, but
rather to actions such as adjustment of regulations, streamlining licensing procedures or facilitating the creation
of networks, the raising of capital or monitoring processes. Adjusting legal and regulatory frameworks is one key
way in which public sector entities can promote innovation-driven societal development.
2. Move towards a participatory society and citizen empowerment

Governments act increasingly in multi-actor settings and depend on negotiated goals, which has been confirmed
by many EPSA 2015 cases in which public administrations engage with stakeholders for jointly developing
strategies, visions and shared projects. Engagement between policy makers and stakeholders not only leads to
effective outcomes, it also redistributes the power dynamics by handing over to stakeholders a share of influence
and ownership, and by introducing collective responsibility to governance. This different mode of cooperation
equally leads to a move from a representative society towards a participatory society. This is in particular visible
in the social and welfare area where new solutions are required in order to ensure quality in the service provision
while facing at the same time heavy budget cuts. In this new set-up, the public sector looks for alternative and
community-supported forms of social assistance and self-help, which empower citizens and allow them to take
direction of their own lives and thus decrease dependency on social assistance.
3. Co-creation with staff and external stakeholders for public sector innovation
The move towards a participatory society and citizens empowerment goes hand in hand with more personalised
services and holistic concepts of service design, often clustered around life-events and with a strong focus on
the user experience. In terms of partnerships and cooperation, the EPSA 2015 demonstrated that collaborative
governance is well established in many public administrations across Europe for policy formulation, strategy or
economic development and joint service delivery. Stakeholder co-design (often including a mix of on- and offline
channels) is practiced in many public entities rather than traditional consultation processes on pre-determined
solutions. There is a visible trend towards developing joint and innovative solutions together with employees and
often external stakeholders across all policy areas. Co-creation is a promising form of tapping into the innovation
potential of all relevant actors and of jointly creating better service quality and products at a lower cost.
4. ICT as well-established tool to deliver efficient services and connect with stakeholders
Regarding ICT, the project submissions clearly show that digital service delivery and electronically supported back
office re-engineering processes are well established across all administrative layers and sectors. eGovernment
solutions allow a better reach beyond geographical limitations, more personalised and better targeted services,
reduced transaction costs and also enable citizen empowerment by providing detailed information to them, as for
example in the area of health, where several projects enable citizens to proactively manage their chronic illnesses
or to manage health services online. In terms of one-stop-shops or information portals, the EPSA saw the following
different forms: Firstly, single access points combining a multitude of functions from different administrative levels
and combining different sectors often clustered around life events; secondly sectoral one-stop-shops and thirdly
open data initiatives (which are sometimes sectoral as in the case of GIS databases) and fourth the ground-
breaking concept of no-stop-shop. These open data initiatives support the concept of information as an asset
owned in common and not the sole property of government.
5. Bridging the digital divide and digital inclusion

The increased use of ICT, especially social media channels, can lead to more transparent and accountable public
administrations, depending on how public administrations choose to use these tools and in general use open data.
However, the digital divide is still present and solutions for vulnerable groups are crucial for ensuring a social
inclusive public administration. This year’s EPSA edition showed that several administrations develop mediation
solutions as they are fully aware of the digital divide which exists in society. Via dedicated physical access points
they bring eServices closer to citizens and act as face-to-face mediators for online services. Many also re-design
their web-portals and one-stop-shops in a more user-friendly way or provide ICT training to citizens.
44 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Conclusions

6. Standardisation and aggregation of data to produce “one version of the truth”
Furthermore, collaboration across departments, different government entities and sectors was present in many
excellent EPSA contributions and back office re-engineering processes to increase standardised and verified
information and generate aggregated data and thus obtain “one version of the truth”, which is used as source and
as common ground by several departments or other stakeholders for decision-making, planning or verification.
Compiling joint information sources and common interpretation of data for (regional) economic development has
also been visible in initiatives, which united a wide range of relevant stakeholders.
7. Adaptive innovation (best copied project) and completely new solutions

This EPSA edition received several ground-breaking approaches and initiatives aimed at exploring new ways
of working together with proven results for improved efficiency and effectiveness in public entities, as well as
numerous cases in which identified working solutions were applied to other specific public sector contexts and
even improved or enhanced in their scope (adaptive innovation). EPSA recognises both ways of innovation as
public sector excellence ultimately strives for effective and efficient institutions, which are capable of delivering
the utmost benefit to society.
8. Broadly based political support as common feature of many successful projects

Apart from excellent project processes and outcomes, public sector leadership and well-founded political support
have been identified as basis for successful and sustainable solutions in various EPSA editions and can also be
confirmed examining the cases submitted to EPSA 2015. Political support across parties and elections is one
crucial element to sustainably anchor an initiative in an organisation and to withstand possible political change.
Many initiatives that have been running successfully for many years have exactly achieved this.
The 266 projects from across Europe have shown that many European public entities have already found and
implemented innovative solutions and thus prove that the discourse about renewing and innovating the public
sector is more than rhetoric. Regarding the initial questions asked in the introduction, the EPSA 2015 best practices
made clear that better, but cheaper services is not a contradiction, but that it can be achieved through innovative
management and bold decisions. These best practices hold many inspiring results and new key methodologies
which are ready for replication and adaptation by other administrations to their own contexts. A wealth of working
solutions ranging from consensus-based instruments, over social dialogue coupled with institutional renewal,
powerful (online) single access points, user-oriented approaches, competence-based training methodologies to
ground-breaking concepts like no-stop-shops and efficient case management tools, has been made available to
public sector innovators eager to introduce change to their own organisation.
With this well of innovative cases at hand, EIPA, as the leading centre of European learning and development
for the public sector, is the ideal place to extract these key methodologies and wrap them up into capacity
building activities open to all public sector entities. Based on its
interactive capacity building approach, EPSA best practices serve
as evidenced examples in EIPA’s seminars, where acknowledged
experts facilitate the adaptation of these results to specific public
sector contexts. All readers are warmly invited to join EIPA at its
seminars and capacity building activities to further learn about
these methods and lead their institutions towards excellence.

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Conclusions 45

5. Bibliography
Bosse, J., Heichlinger, A. and N. Thijs, “From Strengthening Administrative Capacity Building (ACB) to Public
Sector Innovation (PSI): Building Blocks and Successful ‘Bridges’”, Eipascope, Bulletin 2014, EIPA, Maastricht,
2014.
Dunleavy et al., “New Public Management Is Dead–Long Live Digital-Era Governance”, Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory, July 2006, 16 (3): 467-494; first published online September 8, 2005.
European Commission Expert Group on Public Sector Innovation, 2013, Powering European Public Sector
Innovation: Towards A New Architecture, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation.
Osborne, S, ed., The New Public Governance: Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public
Governance, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, London and New York, 2010.
Osborne, S. P. and L. Brown, Introduction: Innovation in public services, In: Osborne, S. P. and L. Brown, Handbook
of Innovation in Public services, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Cheltenham, 2013.
Websites
Better Reykjavik project:

www.citizens.is/portfolio/better-reykjavik-connects-citizens-and-administration-all-year-round
46 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Bibliography

Part 2:
Best Practices Catalogue
EPSA 2015 Statistics
Applications by Country (266)
EU Institutions (3) Austria 18 Latvia 6

Belgium 6 Lithuania 20
Bulgaria 8 Luxembourg 2
Croatia 3 Malta 2
Czech Republic 1 Montenegro 2
Cyprus 2 The Netherlands 14
2
Denmark 10 Norway 1
11 1 Estonia 1 Poland 15
1 Finland 1 Portugal 17
1 France 1 Romania 6
6 FYR Macedonia 1 Serbia 1
10 20 Germany 4 Slovakia 4
Greece 13 Slovenia 9
6 2 15 Hungary 13 Spain 39
14
6 4 Iceland 2 Sweden 11
2 1
4 Ireland 6 Switzerland 1
18 13 Italy 17 Turkey 3
1 1
9 3 6 Kosovo 1 United Kingdom 2
17
1
2 1 8
1
39 13
17 3
2 2
48 EPSA 2015 Statistics

Best Practice Certificates (BPC) by Country (64)
Austria (7)
Croatia (1)
Czech Republic (1)
Denmark (5)
EU Institutions (1)
Germany (1)
Greece (2)
Iceland (1)
Ireland (2)
Hungary (1)
Latvia (1)
Lithuania (2)
The Netherlands (10)
Norway (1)
Poland (2)
Portugal (9)
Romania (1)
Slovenia (1)
Spain (7)
Sweden (5)
Turkey (1)
United Kingdom (2)
0 5 10
Applications by Administrative Category
European/National/Regional level (160)

of which 31% is EU Funded
Supra-Local/Local level (106)

of which 29% is EU Funded
Total: 266
EPSA 2015 Statistics 49

Applications by Size of Organisation
1-25 (19)
25-50 (22)
50-100 (25)
100-500 (69)
500-5000 (88)
>5000 (43)
Total: 266
Sectors covered by all applications*

1 Public administration, modernisation, institutional affairs, reform 53%
2 Public health and social welfare/affairs 26%
3 Education (higher and lower), training and learning 24%
4 Information society, technology, media and audio-visual 22%
5 Environment, climate change, agriculture (incl. food safety) and fishery 15%
6 Economic affairs, competition, SME 15%
7 Employment, labour related affairs and gender equality 15%
8 Regional policy and development, decentralisation 13%
9 Science, research, innovation 13%
10 Justice, police, human rights and security 11%
11 Sports, youth, culture and art 11%
12 Transport and infrastructure 8%
13 Taxation, customs, finances 5%
14 External relations and aid, development and enlargement 3%
15 Other... 14%
* This table shows the share of applications having been submitted under each of the given sectors.
Please note that one application may fall under various sectors.
50 EPSA 2015 Statistics

Evaluation and Selection Methodology and Process
The evaluation and selection methodology developed and used in the EPSA 2015 edition to select the best
practices and the final winners follows a multiple-step impartial and independent process:
1. an online evaluation;
2. a consensus meeting;
3. onsite visits to and validation of a small number of short-listed projects per category; and
4. the final decision on the award winners by a high-level jury.
Graphical illustration of the EPSA 2015 Evaluation and Selection Methodology and Process
During the first step of the evaluation which was done exclusively online each submitted application per administrative
category was evaluated by external experts, in a completely independent and autonomous way. Each evaluator was
automatically allocated a fixed amount of projects within a concrete category, according to his or her academic and
professional background, nationality, gender and language skills (active and passive). Evaluators did not find out the
results from each other, nor did they know with whom they were assessing the same project(s).
At the consensus meeting – the second step – all evaluators joined together to review and discuss the first
provisional ranking per category based on their individual scorings and possible discrepancies. This evaluation
step was coordinated and chaired by the EIPA Category Leaders. However, they themselves did not evaluate
projects, they were only mandated to guide the meeting. At the end of this step, a commonly agreed and
consensual final list of ranked projects per category was made available. As part of this output of this second step,
a short-listed number of top-ranked projects per category were defined and the best practice certificate recipients
(in total 64, including the aforesaid short-listed projects) were chosen.
In June 2015 – the third step of the evaluation process – EIPA representatives visited or video-conferenced with
the short-listed projects for validation and verification purposes, supported by the previous data and information
from the discussions.

Finally, a group of carefully selected Jury members (European stakeholders and/or political personalities different
from the expert evaluators) decided on the award winners per category – the fourth and final step of the EPSA
2015 assessment process. In this context, an important note is that a final nominee or winner must have been
drawn from the group of short-listed and validated projects, because of the importance of checking the “theory” of
an application against its “reality”.
In view of the assessment methodology, each submitted application was first checked against the eligibility criteria.
If the criteria set out in the ToR of the “call for applications” had been met, a registration number was allocated and
the project was then subject to evaluation against 8 evaluation criteria. In the assessment, each EPSA evaluator
relied on the information provided in the standard application form.
The evaluation criteria
I. Innovation The novelty of the solution, the degree to which the case shows a leap of creativity
in the practice of public administration (which may include intelligent adaptation,
update and extension of past practices or actions), and demonstrates something
different that goes beyond what currently exists.
II. Stakeholder The case shows evidence of stakeholder involvement, e.g. evidence of public
involvement and civil society cooperation and/or response to consultation, evidence
of political support; in particular, evidence of intelligent engagement with
stakeholders which can influence the design and production of services, smart
partnership and governance models.
III. Relevance of actions The particular needs and constraints of the context, the target groups and final
taken beneficiaries, and how the actions address their real needs.
IV. Impact/results The realisation of planned objectives and activities; the illustration of proven
evidence of benefits, visible impact and tangible results, (which may be based on
objectively high levels of achievement).
V. Sustainability The case shows or describes elements which allow it to be sustained beyond an
initial period of the realisation of its objectives and of its activities.
VI.Transferability and The case has potential value and lessons to be learnt for other entities because
learning capacity it provides the potential for successful replication in other contexts (different
Member States and levels of government); it stimulates a learning, innovation
and self-improvement culture within the entity.
VII. Social Inclusion The case provides evidence of consideration and application of diversity issues,
including, but not restricted to, consideration of gender, age, disability and
geographical location.
VIII. Effect on financial The case is based on an assessment of the effect of decisions made on public
sustainability and finances (e.g. deficit/debt) and future economic recovery (employment, output,
economic growth skills, etc.).
The EPSA motto is to “bring together the best, most innovative and efficient performers” from the European
public sector. If a project aimed/claimed to be “innovative, efficient etc”, it needed to have accumulative positive
and important evidence/results/merits regarding these 8 general criteria.
In this context, the objective was to identify in the project description the key “enablers” which make the project
a success (story) – innovative, efficient, excellence etc. – and to carry out a critical assessment of value based
upon the obtained information, i.e. a qualitative measurement. The evaluation was not based on the amount of
detail, nor on the quality of the writing or presentation of the case; the judgement was based rather on the quality
of what the case has achieved and the lessons learnt. Sufficient detail must have been provided to convince
the evaluator(s) of this. Thus, the aim was not – for instance – to necessarily know the precise or right number
regarding evaluation dimensions (e.g. results, lessons learnt), but to identify – when assessing – whether there
is a large or small impact on the basis of the available information retrieved from the project application form. A field
52 Evaluation and Selection Methodology and Process

for explanation after each criterion in the system allowed the EPSA team to collect and store from all evaluators
the comments on their scoring and their reasoning behind it. This information is now offered to applicants in the
form of the “Evaluation Summary Notes” or feedback letters to highlight to them the strengths or weaknesses of the
respective project and to guide them towards possible paths for improvement.
In conclusion, the best projects selected as winners, nominees and/or rewarded as best practice certificate
recipients in the catalogue part have offered a sound and clear overview of the project performance against the
set of criteria throughout the whole EPSA process.
In addition to meeting the eight general criteria, applications submitted to the EPSA 2015 had to demonstrate
changes leading to successful outcomes, such as:
• Effective engagement by government with stakeholders
• New service delivery approaches
• Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches
• Sound public finance
The EPSA 2015 Award Categories
All levels of public administration were rewarded since the theme aimed to be inclusive. Therefore, EPSA 2015
presented awards in two different categories based on the level of administration:
Category 1: Projects/cases submitted by organisations from the European/National/Regional level.

Category 2: Projects/cases submitted by organisations from the Supra-Local/Local level.
In addition, a third award was presented to a successful and outstanding project or case – drawn from both
categories – with a significant, cross-cutting perspective, e.g. cross-border, cross-administrative, cross-sector, etc.
Besides the three above-mentioned awards, Best Practice Certificates (BPC) were presented to a number of
top-ranked projects in each category. This means that good practice at all levels was recognised, underlining the
importance of coherent actions, coordination and monitoring of the actions, creative mechanisms of accountability,
and/or models of decentralisation and partnership at the various levels of public administration.
The
Public Sector
as Partner for a Better Society
Winner Winner
European, Winner Local
National Cross-Cutting or
or Regional Award Supra-Local
Award Award
Nominees Nominees
Best Practice Best Practice
European Network of Public Sector Excellence

Statistics
Out of a total of 266 projects received, 106 projects came from the Supra-Local/Local administrative level. In the
statistics below you can see the number of applications by country, the size of the submitting organisations and
the sectors covered.
Applications by Country
Austria (4)
Bulgaria (5)
Croatia (3)
Czech Republic (1)
Cyprus (1)
Denmark (8)
Finland (1)
Germany (2)
Greece (3)
Hungary (6)
Iceland (2)
Ireland (4)
Italy (7)
Latvia (1)
Lithuania (5)
Luxembourg (1)
Montenegro (1)
The Netherlands (4)
Norway (1)
Poland (13)
Portugal (6)
Romania (4)
Serbia (1)
Slovakia (1)
Slovenia (6)
Spain (11)
Sweden (1)
Turkey (2)
United Kingdom (1)
0 5 10 15
54 Best Practices Catalogue / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

1-25 (9)
25-50 (6)
50-100 (10)
100-500 (28)
500-5000 (42)
>5000 (11)
Total: 106
Sectors covered *
15 Other... 19%
Best Practices Catalogue / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 55

The following 27 BPC project executive summaries under this administrative category are presented according to
the four indicative areas:
Among these BPC projects, we indicated the 3 Nominees for the Supra-Local/Local administrative level and 2 more
Nominees for the Cross-Cutting Award. In addition this icon shows that a project was fully or partially financed
by EU supportive actions.
The graph below indicates the number of Best Practice Certificates by country within this level.
Best Practice Certificates (BPC) by Country
Croatia (1)
Czech Republic (1)
Denmark (3)
Greece (1)
Iceland (1)
Ireland (2)
Lithuania (1)
The Netherlands (4)
Norway (1)
Poland (2)
Portugal (2)
Romania (1)
Slovenia (1)
Spain (3)
Sweden (1)
Turkey (1)
United Kingdom (1)
0 5 10
56 Best Practices Catalogue / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

Fremfærd
Submitted by Fremfærd
An efficient municipal sector is essential both for the citizens and

EPSA2015032
companies belonging to Danish society. The recession has put the
public sector under pressure and general improvements in the municipal
Fremfærd economy have a longer-term perspective. Demographic developments
Løngangstræde 25, 1 – e.g. the increasing proportion of senior citizens – are also putting pressure
1468 Copenhagen K on the municipalities. In addition, the quality of the municipal service must
Denmark be further enhanced. To ensure that municipalities work more efficiently, it
http://fremfaerd.dk is essential that individual citizens and the primary tasks are in focus when
developing municipal workplaces. Employees and managers are central
Contact person players for guaranteeing that these objectives are achieved.
Lars Bøjesen
Head of Staff The parties to the collective agreements in the municipal labour market – the
[email protected] employers’ association “KL” on the one hand and the employee organi-
sations organised in the umbrella organisation “Forhandlingsfællesskabet” on
Size of organisation the other hand have therefore concluded the agreement on which Fremfærd
100-500; is based. The reason for the parties entering into this formal cooperation is
people involved: >15 that municipalities, municipal workplaces and (personnel) organisations in
cooperation with Fremfærd can help with and/or participate in activities that can
Type of sector strengthen the development of municipal work and municipal workplaces.
Public administration, modernisation,
institutional affairs, reform The parties agree on the importance of interdisciplinary participatory
collaboration for developing the primary tasks and efficient task
Key words of the project performance. Working together to perform tasks should be characterised
Danish model, municipal primary tasks, by a high degree of “social capital”, high professionalism, trust, quality and
efficiency gains and effectiveness, strategic a well-functioning psychosocial working environment.
competence, promoting trust, psychosocial
working environment, innovation, Fremfærd focuses on collective efforts to develop municipal primary tasks
measurement tools, cultures of assessment and improve efficiency through e.g. working on: enhancing quality and
professionalism, including strategic competence development; promoting
trust, wellbeing and a good psychosocial working environment when
working on the primary task; developing innovation momentum; creating measurement tools and cultures of assessment; promoting
good leadership; focusing on citizens; developing employees’ influence on their own work.
The Fremfærd agreement was also linked to the collective agreement in 2013 and is now continued and reinforced during the 2015
collective agreement – which runs until April 2018.
Since its beginning in 2013, the partnership has become even closer, e.g. the Board has adopted a wide-ranging vision for
Fremfærd and no fewer than 15 specific experimental and development projects have been adopted and initiated that individually
and collectively concretise Fremfærd’s ambition and objectives.
As illustrated by the grounds for launching Fremfærd, this project fully reflects the theme for EPSA 2015: The public sector as a
partner for a better society. Fremfærd is the epitome of a partnership with the municipalities and society in general, both directly
and through their interest groups and employer organisation, and by joining forces with trade unions and working to develop the
municipal sector. Thus, Fremfærd
1. efficiently involves the public sector and other stakeholders in relation to improving how municipal tasks are performed;
2. applies new ways of providing service;
3. found an innovative approach to working with different organisations knowledge and management;
4. is based on promoting a healthy public economy.
Supra-Local/Local Project / Effective engagement by government with stakeholders 57

Local Human Rights in Utrecht – Empowering a Local
Network with Global Value
Submitted by the Municipality of Utrecht
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close
EPSA2015217
to home − so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map
of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual: the neighbourhood
Municipality of Utrecht he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office
Stadsplateau 1, where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child
3500 CE Utrecht seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.
The Netherlands Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.
www.utrecht.nl/internationale-zaken/ Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall
mensenrechten look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
http://humanrightsutrecht.blogspot.com
Eleanor Roosevelt, Remarks at the United Nations, March 27, 1958
Contact persons
Hans Sakkers
Head of Department of Citymarketing, During the past few years, there has been growing support for a human-
International Affairs and EU Subsidy Strategy rights based approach at a local level: it is at this level where human rights
[email protected] are violated. It is up to local authorities to guarantee the rights of their
Marieke Duchatteau citizens and to act upon this responsibility. Therefore, the City of Utrecht
[email protected] has been actively working on promoting a human rights culture in the city
since 2010. The city is aware of the importance of its role in defending
Size of organisation people’s human rights and fitting the identity of an open, social city in which
500-5000; many social and civil organisations undertake their activities.
people involved: >15
After consolidating and rethinking the concept of local human rights in the
Type of sector city, a Local Human Rights Coalition was born in 2013. This coalition consists
Justice, police, human rights and security; of local civil society organisations, businesses, policy officers and scientists
social Inclusion and is meant to create ownership of local human rights in order to establish
a local human rights culture. This main objective is achieved :
Key words of the project 1. by bringing together many organisations to discover crossovers between
Human rights culture, local coalition, different initiatives;
joined-up governance, public value creation 2. by improving local policies in the sense that these policies should comply
with human rights standards, and finally;
3. by developing an (inter)national joined-up governance process in which
knowledge, methods and strategies are shared.
The innovative feature and the strength of the coalition is the structure of the network: since actors from both the legitimising
and operational capacity environment are represented in the coalition, all resources are present to create the public value aimed
for. The fact that indeed this network is effective, can be seen by looking at the results of the Local Human Rights Coalition: new
crossovers between initiatives and organisations are discovered, policy officers increasingly use human rights as a frame for local
policy and Utrecht is playing an advisory role towards other (inter)national cities and is often invited to give presentations at (inter)
national universities and congresses.
This effect is not just temporary: for example the coalition has withstood the change of mayors and alderman. This sustainability is
ensured by the governance model aimed at developing a sustainable network. This governance model of the coalition is transferable
to other cities, both national and international. Therefore the Local Human Rights Coalition does not only improve the quality of life
of Utrecht’s citizens, but also creates global value.
58 Supra-Local/Local Project / Effective engagement by government with stakeholders

HSD Campus and HSD Development Fund
Submitted by the Municipality of The Hague
EU Funded
The project concerns both the development of the HSD Campus and the
EPSA2015137
HSD Development Fund. This project was undertaken by the Municipality
of The Hague in collaboration with the HSD Foundation and sponsored by
Municipality of The Hague the European Regional Development Fund. Its aim is to better facilitate
Spui 70 the security cluster in general and stimulate innovation by triple-helix
2511 BT The Hague cooperation (businesses, governments and knowledge institutions) in
The Netherlands specific.
www.thehaguesecuritydelta.com
The Hague Security Delta
Contact person The Hague Security Delta (HSD) is the Dutch national security cluster
Daan Rijnders in which businesses, governments and knowledge institutions work
Project Manager together on safety & security innovation and knowledge. HSD consists
[email protected] of more than 180 partners with a shared ambition to create economic
and societal revenue (more business, jobs, and a safer world). HSD is
Size of organisation becoming increasingly important for the national and regional economy.
>5000; Even in a declining economy, this sector has grown consistently over the
people involved: >15 past few years. In The Hague region alone 400 security businesses realise
more than 25% of the national turnover in security and employ 13,400
Type of sector people. Nationwide there is a turnover of €6 billion and 61,500 people are
Economic affairs, competition, SME; employed in the security domain. The expectations for further growth are
Employment, labour related affairs and promising. HSD has become the largest security cluster in Europe and
gender equality; Information society, forms international partnerships with the main security clusters in the USA,
technology, media and audio-visual; Canada, Singapore and South Africa. Besides. In order to successfully
Science, research, innovation facilitate the vast amount of initiatives in this cluster, the HSD Foundation
was founded in 2013.
Key words of the project
Campus, innovation, triple helix model, The HSD Campus
public-private cooperation, business This specific project embraced the opportunity to develop the HSD
development, economic infrastructure Campus, which offers HSD partners a neutral meeting place for security
innovation and brings together state-of-the-art facilities and networks.
At the campus, they have access to (flexible) office space, training and
educational facilities, a boardroom, meeting rooms, restaurant, coffee corner, and living labs for serious gaming, real-time intelligence
and (cyber) incident experiences. It is an inspiring place to meet entrepreneurs, students and professionals. Since the opening in
2014 more than 25 organisations have set up offices at the HSD Campus. Furthermore, it houses three educational programmes:
The Cyber Security Academy, Security Talent Community and European Network for Cyber Security. SME security entrepreneurs
are also offered business advice in the form of a SME Desk.
The HSD Development Fund

The HSD Fund has been developed to stimulate cooperation and growth in the security sector. In 2013 and 2014 triple-helix
consortia (with at least one launching customer) could submit proposals for 50% co-financing. Selection was made on the degree
of innovation and impact. By doing so, five initiatives with real market potential and positive impact on the economy and society
were granted co-finance of about €200,000 for innovations ranging from serious gaming to autonomous robotic security solutions.
The success of 2013 led to a second call in 2014. Due to the HSD Fund the Dutch triple-helix now increasingly works together on
successful security innovations in a pre-competitive stage.

The Rural Accelerator
Submitted by the Municipality of Sjöbo
Sjöbo is a small town and the seat of Sjöbo Municipality in Skåne County,
EPSA2015056
Sweden, with about 8,000 inhabitants.
Municipality of Sjöbo One joint issue the businesses in Sjöbo share is the difficulties they have
275 80 Sjöbo in developing their ideas into finished products or services while staying
Sweden in the countryside. At the same time, innovation enterprises grow in the
www.sjobo.se surrounding urban areas.
Contact person The conclusion is soon reached that it is harder to develop and launch
Lena Ytterberg innovation businesses in rural areas than it is in larger cities. The flux
Business Developer in Sjöbo Municipality of ideas and innovations (as well as associated skills and jobs) from
[email protected] rural to urban areas cause a brain drain and contribute to depopulation.
It further depletes the finances of public administration and the overall
Size of organisation public services available to rural communities.
500-5000;
people involved: 1-5 The main objectives of the Rural Accelerator are to develop ideas and
businesses in the countryside based on the special features rural areas
Type of sector offer.
institutional affairs, reform; Regional policy The Rural Accelerator makes an inventory of the business community
and development, decentralisation; and actively engages with individual entrepreneurs and business owners
Science, research, innovation with the purpose of creating awareness of what innovation is and how it is
developed from an idea to a finished product or service.
Innovation, rural development, business The Rural Accelerator provides the support companies need to thrive and
development develop in the countryside without having the need to relocate to more
urban or big city areas.
The Rural Accelerator has the ambition to create jobs for people in rural areas, thus creating a relationship between young people
and local companies to familiarise them with the idea of working as entrepreneurs and remaining in the region rather than moving
away.
The most important innovative features of the Rural Accelerator are:

• it comes from the public administration of Sjöbo
• it is rural;
• it is mobile;
• it engages young entrepreneurs;
• it involves immigrants;
• it has a cross-sector approach; and
• it aims to be self-financed.

Your City, You Decide
Submitted by the Municipality of Lublin
Nominee EU Funded
‘Your City, You Decide’ is a social participation umbrella programme of the

EPSA2015107
City of Lublin involving social partners such as NGOs, District Councils and
residents. The first step was the implementation of the Self-Government
Municipality of Lublin Activity Programme (PAS) in partnership with six other local governments
Plac Łokietka 1 to develop and implement a system of public services monitoring.
20-109 Lublin 80 meetings with residents were organised where they decided on the
Poland disbursement of district funds. As a result, five districts continue to execute
www.lublin.eu public consultations and participatory allocation of the funds.
www.obywatelski.lublin.eu
www.ngo.lublin.eu The next stage was the “Lublin Public Consultation Platform” – an
application for mobile devices integrated into the municipal website.
Contact person The application was used in the procedure of the Civic Budget 2015 as a
Kinga Jarmołowicz tool to collect information on the procedure itself, on submitted projects
Senior Specialist and to vote on selected projects. The first edition of the Civic Budget was
[email protected] launched in 2014. The procedure was specified in the course of public
consultations. The initiative enjoyed great success: 337 applications
Size of organisation were submitted and 30 selected for implementation. The inhabitants had
500-5000; 10 million PLN at their disposal. The financial envelope for implementation
people involved: >15 of the inhabitants’ ideas was doubled in the following year up to PLN 20 m.
Type of sector In 2012, the Municipality of Lublin joined the partnership project with the
Public administration, modernisation, canton of Neuchâtel “Lublin 4 All. Participatory model of cultural diversity
institutional affairs, reform; civic participation management” (http://dlawszystkich.lublin.eu). A management system
and a social campaign promoting diversity in Lublin were created and
Key words of the project cooperation with other Polish local governments was established. Lublin
Participation, diversity management, has been a pioneer of integration efforts for years: in September 2014, the
civic budget, public consultation City of Lublin received four prizes in the national competition “Open Cities”.
Thanks to cooperation with NGOs and institutions involved in integration
of foreigners in Lublin, it was possible, among others, to invite refugees in
Lublin to the first edition of the civic budget.
As a continuation, the project “Communication for Integration: social networks for diversity” (C4i, www.stopplotkom.lublin.eu) has
been launched in June 2014, aiming at combating prejudice, rumours and stereotypes concerning immigrants. It is co-financed by
the European Union and the Council of Europe. The Barcelona anti-rumour methodology has been implemented and communication
tools have been built. If the rumours spread like a virus, then “anti-rumours” can do the same, with the participation of citizens – Anti-
Rumour Agents. The project includes activities in the public space: Rumours Exchange Shop, CaféDialog and football matches.
Residents were involved in creative writing workshops, media workshops, stencil workshops promoting diversity and other activities.
In addition to the activities supporting individual citizens’ involvement, the Municipality of Lublin cooperates financially and non-
financially with NGOs. Since 2012, it has been assisting in the implementation of the projects funded by external funds by organising
a competition for own contributions. Thanks to this initiative, NGOs have the opportunity to acquire the missing funds necessary
to achieve their objectives as their projects rely on external funding. The Municipality of Lublin also funds the briefing portal
www.lublin.ngo.pl for local non-governmental organisations. Its operation is entrusted to NGOs in the form of an open bid.

Better Place
Submitted by the City of Kolin
The general public has become so disillusioned with the local government,
EPSA2015254
administration and public services that taking any formal or direct action is
seen as futile. Local governments are alienated from the public and lack
City of Kolin the information they need to identify the things they need to change. Local
Městský úřad Kolín, Karlovo náměstí 78 companies are weary of getting involved in improving local areas and find
280 12 Kolín I it difficult to recognise the benefits. Throughout central Europe service
Czech Republic providers have a reputation of being slow to respond and having inefficient
www.mukolin.cz working practices. They need more access to real-time information
www.lepsimisto.cz to enable them to respond faster and manage work distribution more
efficiently.
Contact person
Vit Rakusan All these issues led to an active approach in order to get citizens and
Mayor businesses involved in the initiative. In 2010 the City of Kolin participated
[email protected] in the Better Place (BP) pilot project. BP is a social responsible online
platform which immediately and directly allows users to deliver feedback
Size of organisation on how to improve public spaces. BP is part of Kolin’s modernisation and
100-500; development of the city administration. The project reflects the strategic
people involved: >15 focus of the city on advancing eGovernment solutions. It represents a
modern and effective tool for communication between citizens and city
Type of sector management. It also promotes openness and transparency of the office.
Information society, technology, media BP is developed in collaboration with Lepsi misto, a NGO that has the
and audio-visual; Public administration, know-how and is in charge of running the Better Place application.
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform
The Better Place application can be used by anyone who owns a smartphone
Key words of the project or camera and a computer connected to the internet. Anyone can insert the
Socially responsible mobile application tip for improvement directly from the street. It can be reporting a broken
bench, a hole in the fence on the playground or a dangerous traffic section.
The user will simply take a picture, add the description and send it to the
website. This recommendation is gathered on the platform, where authorised administrators consider it. If it is found relevant, it is
passed on to the local official responsible for public space condition and the case is immediately solved. The feedback is published
again via the website.
An important functionality represents a proposed solution for each tip. Better Place motivates users to not only pointing to the
problems, but also thinking about the ideal way to solve them. At the same time it may also function effectively in a situation when
the municipality is considering multiple solutions to the problem – they can insert more solution proposals and monitor which one
will gain greater support from the citizens.
Better Place is a fulfilment of true democracy for citizens and civil society, where the public affairs are being co-decided by citizens.
This increases the responsibility for the place where they live. It enables local government to visualise the overall state of the local
urban area, increases transparency by mapping activity and gives them some oversight on the activities of the service contractors.
It offers real-time data and visualisation tools that improve their efficiency and enable them to pro-actively plan future projects.
Better Place is also the ideal CSR tool for companies. Companies can get the inspiration from tips posted by the citizens in their
region and then help to solve selected tips - whether using money, material or perhaps time of their employees.
Since joining the project in 2010 to date, the citizens of Kolin reported a total of 900 tips and suggestions for improvement.

Urban Environment and Health
Submitted by the Barcelona Provincial Council
Nominee Cross-Cutting Award
There is plenty of scientific evidence about the close relationship between

EPSA2015068
health and the environment in which people live and work. This relationship,
well known for many years and recognised internationally, is complex and
Barcelona Provincial Council has direct and obvious impacts and some others which are less obvious
Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171 but important ones.
08035 Barcelona, Spain
www.diba.cat/tema-salut Following this evidence, it is important to create synergies between different
www.diba.cat/en areas of political action to promote healthy urban environments fostering the
improvement of population’s health. Taking into account that the design of
Contact person our cities and towns (urban planning, gardens, parking, transport network,
Catalina Chamorro Moreno district’s equipment, etc.) has direct impact on our health, it becomes
Chief of the Public Health Service clear that the strategy, promoted by the UN, “Health In All Policies” (HIAP)
[email protected] requires the collaborative work of different professionals.
Size of organisation This idea of a common perspective guides the actions of the Public Health
500-5000; Service (PHS) of the Barcelona Provincial Council (BPC), which provides
people involved: >15 support to municipalities in designing and implementing local policies
aimed at improving the health of people living in the province and adapting
Type of sector the services to the necessities and size of all cities and towns, promoting
Urban planning; housing and urban equal access of all of them to the offered services.
improvement; diversity and citizenship;
facilities and public space To include the health perspective in all local policies, the Barcelona
Provincial Council initiated the project called “Urban Environment and
Key words of the project Health”, which was launched under the framework of the Table for Urban
Health, urban environment, housing, Improvement (TxMU, on its Catalan acronym). The TxMU is an instrument
public space of coordination and transversal work to support municipalities promoted by
the Department of Planning and Sustainability of the Barcelona Provincial
Council. It facilitates the formulation of comprehensive intervention projects
in neighbourhoods and urban areas with special needs.
The “Urban Environment and Health” project has developed, until now, two action lines:
• Training courses on “healthy urban environments”. The training courses are addressed to local technicians from different disciplines
and areas of work dealing with the design, management and maintenance of a healthy urban environment for everyone.
• The “Urban Environment and Health Guide”. The guide is an online product that aims to create urban environments encouraging
people to live healthily. It also envisages the environmental minimisation of the factors that can pose a risk for the health of people.
The guide is structured into five areas of action (information and participation, urban planning, public space, amenities and housing)
and by means of 75 different files it explains how to design, maintain and use those public areas to promote health and to prevent
them from becoming a risk for health.
Every single file contains seven sections ranging from the scientific evidence and the detected needs, proposals and recommendations
in order to achieve the desired goal of health, the local applicability and their regulatory framework; and finally, referential experiences
and technical documentation supporting it. The guide offers a search engine based on the intervention phase (e.g. design, use...)
and the area of action (e.g. amenities, housing...), facilitating a fast response to the interests of professionals using it.
This project is an opportunity to integrate the expertise and perspectives of various disciplines, facilitating the holistic (comprehensive)
intervention projects in order to reduce health inequalities and improve people’s health.
The “Urban Environment and Health” project is a valuable tool for building capacity for action to promote healthy cities and towns.

We Design for Life
Submitted by the Municipality of Kolding
In December 2012 a new vision for the Municipality of Kolding was decided
EPSA2015039
by the Town Council: “We Design for Life - Together we design options for a
good life through entrepreneurship, social innovation and education”.
Municipality of Kolding
Akseltorv 1 This vision not only indicates where Kolding wants to be in 2022, but also
6000 Kolding how to get there. It is built on the basis of Design Thinking methods and
Denmark the intention is to become a full-scale Design Thinking community by 2022.
www.kolding.dk
www.kolding.dk/design The themes based on the authentic strengths of the municipality are:
• Entrepreneurship
Contact person • Social Innovation
Anne Schoedts • Education
Design and Innovation Consultant • Design and Branding
[email protected]
Strategy for implementation
Size of organisation The basis for implementation is the establishment of a vision committee,
>5000; headed by the director of the municipality and the establishment of a
people involved: >15 Design Secretary as the strategic and operational unit. The secretariat has
the responsibility for the portfolio management and the strategic initiatives.
Type of sector 10 concrete initiatives with measurable goals and steering committees for
Public administration, modernisation, each initiative, will deliver the propulsive power to the implementation. A part
institutional affairs, reform; municipality of the project has been the development of a completely new leadership
charter through a design process involving 250 leaders, a new employee
Key words of the project policy, and a design process model including a toolbox for design-driven
Social innovation, education, public innovation. A major strength of the vision and a solid brand base lies in
entrepreneurship, design community the involvement of the whole community both during the development of the
vision and now in the realisation.
Cultural change – Currently the municipality is undergoing a paradigm shift from being very system-oriented to becoming more design
and user-centred. It strives for a welfare system that makes sense to the users and in which users take responsibility for their own lives with
support from the Municipality. Triple helix thinking has shown to play an important role in involving the whole community.
Capacity and competences – A corps of 33 internal employees has been trained as design- and innovation consultants and all
leaders in the municipality will participate in design leadership courses, starting with 75 participants in autumn 2015.
Results – As a result, the Municipality has proved to be much more efficient, and has succeeded in reducing costs by €6,600,000
per year, the equivalent of approximately €75 per citizen per year in the years 2013-2015. Every year, more than 300 people in
Kolding start their own businesses. The survival rate and job creation exceeds the Danish national average and, after 5 years, the
surviving entrepreneurs have created 450 jobs.
Examples of successful projects

Denmark’s first Public-Private Partnership in a care home: For the first time in Denmark a care home has been developed through
a cooperation between private companies and a public organisation; Your Neighbourhood Decides: Kolding has announced the
project Your Neighbourhood Decides for the third time. An area of the local society is given the opportunity to create its own projects
supported from the Municipality; A united and unique college town: For the first time a united Campus Council has been settled and
they have invested in joint activities to develop an attractive and international college town; Public-Private Innovation through Living
Design Lab: Kolding offers a professional setup to the private sector to develop products for the public sector; Design Week Kolding:
An international event with four tracks: a tourist and visitor track; a citizen track; a business track and a design-professional track.

Action Programme for Large Families – Three Plus Family
Submitted by the Municipality of Lublin, Department of Health and Social Affairs
The Action Programme for large families: Three Plus Family (Rodzina Trzy
EPSA2015040
Plus) was introduced by the legal Act No. 429/XIX/2012 of 29 March 2012
of Lublin City Council. At that time, this was the first initiative with such a
Municipality of Lublin wide scope in the area of the City of Lublin and in the entire territory of
Department of Health and Social Affairs the Lubelskie Voivodeship, as well as one of the first programmes of its
ul. Stanisława Leszczyńskiego 20 kind in Poland. The programme is addressed to all families residing in
20-069 Lublin the area of the City of Lublin with three or more children up to the age
Poland of 18 or 25 (if they are in full-time education). The programme aims at
www.um.lublin.pl supporting the up-bringing of children, the creation of a positive image of
www.trzyplus.lublin.eu multi-children families as well as improved access to cultural, sports and
leisure properties through taking advantage of discounts and exemptions
Contact person offered by city government units and private entrepreneurs. In addition,
Dr Barbara Danieluk it fosters cooperation with other institutions providing services to Lublin
Deputy Director of Department of families in order to create improved living conditions for them as a result
Health and Social Affairs of integrated actions.
[email protected]
Assistance to families through the programme has been treated as a long-
Size of organisation term investment rather than an ad hoc charity. Therefore, the programme
500-5000; does not build on the classical form of material support for multi-children
people involved: 1-5 families, but involves other elements of assistance for the up-bringing of
children and for building a positive image of large families. This initiative
Type of sector does not “stigmatise” social assistance, although the programme does
Public health and social welfare affairs not deprive multi-children families in need of the possibility to benefit
from social assistance offered by the Municipal Family Support Centre in
Key words of the project Lublin. Large families participating in the programme receive the “Rodzina
Family, multi-children family, large family, Trzy Plus” card, which is awarded based on the verification of a request
family-friendly policies submitted by an adult family member. The personal card is issued free of
charge for each family member for distinct periods (for parents indefinitely,
for children up to the age of 18 with the possibility of extension if they are
in full-time education – up to 25 years of age).
In essence, this card presents a municipal initiative to facilitate the everyday life of multi-children families by accumulating a
comprehensive offer of many services at discount and promotional prices not available to other inhabitants.
The programme is based on the cooperation with partners. Entities cooperating with the city complement the scope of support by
offering services which cannot be provided by local municipal entities. Thanks to the involvement of the business sector, the ideas
of helpfulness and social co-responsibility are being initiated among the inhabitants of the City. Acquisition of new programme
partners is implemented though the promotion of the programme in the media, but also individual conversations and direct contacts
with entities.
The programme has attracted a great deal of interest. It allows families to improve their quality of live, not only from an economic
perspective, but also from a social one, enhancing both development and life opportunities for the children brought up in large
families. Thus, the programme changes the image of multi-children families. It presents a net benefit not only to multi-children
families, but also to the whole local community as it increases demand for local services and goods which improves the situation
of local businesses involved in the programme.

Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT)
Submitted by the Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT), North Somerset
The World has an aging population. By 2031, in the United Kingdom (UK)
EPSA2015059
it is estimated that 1-in-4 citizens will be aged over 60-years. Older adults
are prey to unscrupulous criminals who use deception and artifice to trick
Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT) and steal money from their senior victims.
6 Manor Grange, Bleadon
Weston-super-Mare The Senior Citizen Liaison Team (SCLT) was established in 2010 by a
North Somerset, BS24 0QG small group of police officers that volunteered their off-duty time to set up
United Kingdom a local charity, which sought to provide a tailored, safety education service
www.sclt.us for the growing elder community. From a nucleus of 4 original volunteers,
the SCLT has grown to become a registered charity of 25+ volunteers,
Contact person from all walks of life, who work alongside a number of statutory bodies to
Mr Ashley Jones provide a safety education service to the vulnerable.
Chair of Trustees/ Director of Operations
[email protected] The ethos of the SCLT is simple, ‘If you have contact with the Senior
Citizen Liaison Team, you are far less likely to become a victim of crime’.
Size of organisation The Charity focuses its work on helping the vulnerable avoid becoming
1-25; victims of deception-type crimes, such as scams that use the telephone,
people involved: >15 computer or mail to target victims.
Type of sector As many older people suffer from an increased likelihood of victimisation,
Public health and social welfare/affairs; the SCLT focus on these areas and strengthen the older adult population
Justice, police, human rights and security; through education and awareness, at a time when traditional law
Information society, technology, media and enforcement and community safety services have seen unprecedented
audio-visual reductions in budgets and subsequent reductions in service delivery.
Key words or the project The SCLT achieve their goals by working in partnership with law enforcement
Senior citizens, crime prevention, law and local municipality organisations by using their network of volunteers to
enforcement, protective services,diversity deliver crime-beating presentations to thousands of seniors throughout the
and equality, civic society South West of England and Wales. The senior safety message is also
spread through the charity’s award-winning magazine, The Senior Siren,
which is published bi-monthly and is made freely available to 250,000
readers.
In recognition of the challenges facing the aging community, from the plethora of community groups who make the wonderful
diversity of the UK population, the SCLT created its ‘Senior Minorities Outreach Team’ in 2012, to engage with community groups
that may otherwise have difficulty in engaging with mainstream agencies, like the police, local authority, or other charities, who
do not recognise the needs of specific groups – such as those groups who do not speak English as a first language. (The Senior
Minorities Outreach Team was announced as winner of the 2014 UK Government Civil Service Diversity & Equality Award for
Community Engagement).
What are the success of the SCLT? In its initial 12-month period (2009/2010), distraction burglaries in Avon and Somerset have been
reduced by 56%, in tangible terms this means 90 fewer victims of distraction burglary. Since this time, the SCLT has significantly
broadened its spectrum of activities and entered into a number of partnerships with statutory and voluntary organisations to provide
its complementary protective services to the older adult community.
The SCLT holds something of a unique symbiotic status within the civil society, as an independent charity that works in unison
with local law enforcement and community safety bodies to achieve a safer and more secure future for the senior population.
In 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron honoured the SCLT with one of his prestigious ‘Big Society’ Awards for its efforts in
strengthening the fabric of the community.

Merger of North and South Tipperary County Councils into a
Unified Tipperary County Council
Submitted by the Tipperary County Council
County Tipperary, Ireland’s largest inland county, has a population of 158,754

EPSA2015024
and covers an area of 4,282 km². Tipperary had been administered as two
separate local government units since 1838.
Tipperary County Council
Civic Offices In July 2011, the national government announced the establishment of a
Clonmel, Co. Tipperary unified county council in Tipperary to replace the existing North and South
Ireland Tipperary County Councils, to be effective from 2014.
www.tipperarycoco.ie
The project’s general objective was to achieve the merger effectively and
Contact person on time, maintain delivery of services and maximise resource deployment
Michael Moroney and savings. The management process put in place utilised the resources
Head of Strategic Projects Unit of the existing councils and allocated them to best advantage in terms
[email protected] of their input to task completion. The merger was managed by a joint
management team (JMT) comprising the management teams of the two
Size of organisation councils. A project support team, including a full-time project coordinator
500-5000; at director level, supported implementation and coordinated the actions
people involved: >15 agreed by the JMT. Management sub-groups were also established on a
functional basis (e.g. IT, finance).
Type of sector
Public administration, modernisation, The national government announced further local government reforms in
institutional affairs, reform October 2012. As a result, the merger project became far bigger and more
complex and now also involved dissolution of the county’s seven urban councils
Key words or the project and incorporation of their staff and functions into the new county council.
Public service organisational amalgamation,
customer service modernisation, The project took place over two inter-related phases – a planning phase
harmonisation of structures, cost/resource and an implementation phase. The planning phase ran from July 2011
rationalisation through to acceptance in July 2012 of the merger implementation plan, which
comprehensively detailed the approach to be taken to ensure that the merger
would happen on schedule.
The implementation phase then ran to the official merger date of 3 June 2014. It encompassed a focus on the merger of systems
and procedures. Overall, there were 128 mini merger ‘projects’ ranging from the integration of major systems like pay-roll through to
minor processes such as parking fines. Innovative features of the merger project include a new service model for delivery of services;
introduction of customer service desks; development of a new public-facing website; energy-saving/carbon-reduction improvements in
building facilities; and risk management planning.
Given the scale of the project, number of stakeholders involved, and the wider challenges arising from reform of the overall public
service, the merger was managed very effectively. The administrative, legal, financial and political merger was achieved on time
and within budget. Communication with stakeholders – staff, elected representatives, trade-unions and other local organisations
– represented an important aspect of the merger. Social inclusion was a significant priority that guided the merger. Marginalised
communities, and the marginalised within communities, now have the opportunity to participate in local decision making and influence
and shape local decisions through new structures.
The consolidation phase encompasses the period from legal merger (June 2014). This is focused on moving past the technical merger.
Removing divisions and developing a new culture around a shared understanding of the aims of the new organisation is fundamental
to any merger. The first step has been development of a new corporate plan for the period 2015-2019, which sets out a clear vision
for the whole county. The merger of two large local authorities had not occurred in Ireland prior to 2014. Learning from the experience
has been identified that will provide guidance to other public service organisations engaged in similar reorganisations in Ireland and
across the wider EU.
Supra-Local/Local Project / New service delivery approaches 67

Project of Improvement of Quality of Public Services
Submitted by the Alytus City Municipal Administration
EU Funded
The project Improvement of Quality of Public Services provided by the Alytus

EPSA2015051
City Municipal Administration was a long-term project implemented from
2009 to 2015. Its aim was to achieve quality improvements in public
Alytus City Municipal Administration services provided by the Alytus City Municipal Administration by creating
Rotušės sq. 4 and implementing a “One-Stop-Shop” public service system and Common
62504 Alytus Assessment Framework (CAF) and performing external evaluation of the
Lithuania activity of the administration.
www.alytus.lt
The self-assessment implemented using the CAF approach (assessment
Contact person of the work of municipality administrations) served as diagnostic tool
Ingrida Leskevičienė and provided additional motivation for staff during the reform process.
Project Manager, Chief Specialist of The assessment was based on the current situation and facts of 2009
Investment Projects Department (the starting point of the change process), highlighted prior and current
[email protected] achievements of the local administration and outlined future aims with the
help of external and internal evaluation. Thus, it shed light on strengths of
Size of organisation the activities carried out by the Alytus City Municipal Administration and
100-500; on areas for further improvement. Following this assessment, the project
people involved: >15 working group proposed 25 simple improvement means (quick wins) and
25 large-scale improvement projects.
Type of sector
Public administration, modernisation, As a result of the external effectiveness evaluation of the activities of
institutional affairs, reform the Alytus City Municipal Administration, external experts prepared the
evaluation report which contained recommendations and suggestions for
Key words of the project future development. This report was based on an analysis of the legal
Public administration, One-Stop-Shop, basis and of the activities of structural sections of the administration as
Common Assessment Framework (CAF) well as on discussions with employees.
Before starting to implement the “One-Stop-Shop” service system, the

project work group visited three twin-town municipalities to gather more information in this area. The municipalities of Naestved
(Denmark), Mandal (Norway) and Velizy-Villacoublay (France) were visited. The city delegation observed how One-Stop-Shops work
in reality and how this approach gets local administration closer to its citizens. Once the “One-Stop-Shop” public service system had
been implemented in Alytus, public services became more effective: all necessary information, applications and claims can now be
obtained and managed in one working place, arranged in a comfortable way for public attendance. The IT system “Avilys” (“Hive”) of
the one-stop-shop gives the municipality the possibility to shift high amounts of “paper work” into the virtual space and thus enables
the administration to save time, cut stationery expenses and to “go green”. All correspondence (incoming and outgoing documents),
agreements and legal documents can be handled (accepted, initiated, prepared, conformed, confirmed, signed), stored and viewed
in a single space.
When Lithuania joined the Euro Zone on 1st January 2015, the Municipality of Alytus implemented the necessary adjustments for
the one-stop-shop system to shift from Litas to Euro.
During the implementation of the project all employees of the Alytus City Municipal Administration received necessary trainings
allowing them to use “Avilys”: 170 officers participated in trainings and currently use their knowledge in their daily work.
68 Supra-Local/Local Project / New service delivery approaches

Digital Pathology
Submitted by the Cova da Beira Hospital
In Portugal, the providers of health care units have constraints associated

EPSA2015038
with geographic isolation, coupled with their limited size. The many
logistical constraints and some mobilization inability of differentiated
Cova da Beira Hospital (CHCB) human resources have hindered the provision of efficient care coverage
Centro Hospitalar Cova da Beira, E.P.E. physicians to the resident population. Currently the technological
Quinta do Alvito development allows to overcome the geographical constraints, as well
Cova da Beira, Portugal as those relating to human resources, to enable monitoring at a distance
www.chcbeira.pt some medical activities.
Contact person Due to this, the Centro Hospitalar Cova da Beira, EPE (CHCB) implemented
Joana Sofia Gaspar de Matos Farias the “Digital Pathological Anatomy” project. This is a partnership between
Project Manager CHCB, the Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade
[email protected] do Porto (IPATIMUP) and the company ZMWAY - lab solutions.
Size of organisation The “Digital Pathological Anatomy” is an innovative project in Portugal,
500-5000; based on the interaction between different hardware and software
people involved: 6-10 combinations aimed at creating a global management platform for all data
and images generated in a pathological anatomy laboratory. This method
Type of sector allows the acquisition, management, visualisation and analysis of all the
Public health and social welfare/affairs; stages of an examination, from the moment it enters the department until
Public administration, modernisation, the relevant diagnosis is presented.
institutional affairs, reform
The entire management is focused on a single computer application,
Key words of the project the SISPAT, and all the data is available for pathologists, diagnostic and
Digital pathology therapeutic technicians and technical assistants. Through an individual
login and password, each professional only has access to the data he/
she needs to properly perform his/her duties, always being subject to
professional secrecy.
The CHCB is responsible for the preparation of the slides and for scanning them for digital analysis. The macroscopic analyses
are carried out by qualified and specialised CHCB technical staff under direct online guidance and on-site regular assessment by
a pathologists who is part of the project and affiliated with the IPATIMUP. At the end of the analyses, the digital image of the slide
is sent to the IPATIMUP.
All data is documented in images using appropriate equipment, from the request and sample container to the identification of
collection areas and cassettes with the respective fragments to be processed in the histological routine. These images are linked
with the examination and analysis already registered with the computer application SISPAT.
The software also allows for the registration of various parameters related to the internal quality control of the analyses, as they are
carried out in full compliance with the principles for accreditation by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), which belongs to
the IPATIMUP.
The IPATIMUP is responsible for supervising the online macroscopic examination, for conducting pathological anatomy diagnoses
based on slides prepared at the CHCB, for the direct observation of slides and microscopic observation by digital means, and for
the monthly quality control.
The company ZMWAY - lab solutions is a specialised company that supports the informatics and equipment necessary to connect
the two centres separated by 250 km. It provides the reagents and the SISPAT management software platform for pathological
anatomy upon request through the web.

Environmental Geographic Information System (GIS) of the
Drama Regional Unit – The Application of a Decision Support
System & Public Information Tool in the Greek Administration
Submitted by the Environmental and Spatial Planning Administration of East
Macedonia and Thrace Region, Greece
Having in mind, the wide use of IT technologies and the widespread
EPSA2015251
employment of servers, cloud data and app-services, the following decision
was made: to combine the Geographic Information Systems, with extensive
Environmental and Spatial Planning digitisation of environmental and related data and datasets using server and
Administration of East Macedonia cloud-based tools and applications, in order to create a powerful decision
and Thrace Region support system/public information tool, that will augment the productivity
Department of Environment and of the organisation, enhance the administrative process in the framework
Hydroeconomy of the Drama Regional Unit of environmental licensing, inspection and auditing and provide open data
P.O. Box 66100, Greece to the people (citizens, surveying companies and potential stake-holders).
www.pedramas.eu Thus, the project “Environmental Geographic Information System (GIS)
of the Drama Regional Unit (East Macedonia – Thrace Region/Greece).
Contact person The application of a Decision Support System (DSS) & Public Information
Malkakis Evangelos tool in the Greek Administration” was born.
Department Manager
[email protected] The project was programmed, structured, planned and completed
[email protected] exclusively by the Department of Environment and Hydroeconomy of the
Drama Regional Unit, Environmental and Spatial Planning Administration
Size of organisation of East Macedonia and Thrace Region-Greece, in cooperation with the
50-100; IT Department of Drama Regional Unit.
people involved: 6-10
The executive phases
Type of sector The 1st phase was the digitisation of environmental licenses issued since 1995
Environment, climate change, agriculture by the Environmental Department of the Drama Regional Unit. The files of
(incl. food safety) and fishery; Information 3500 environmental licenses were scanned in .pdf format. Furthermore, 2000
society, technology, media and audio- files of water well licenses were digitised. This huge digitisation procedure was
visual; Public administration, modernisation, accomplished through a public service program of the Greek Employment
institutional affairs, reform; Science, Organisation in association with the East Macedonia and Thrace Region.
research, innovation
The 2nd phase was the planning and completion of the environmental
Key words of the project geodatabase of the Drama Regional Unit using a GIS platform (for this project
Environment, innovation, GIS, web, the ArcGIS platform/software was utilised). The licensing datasets were fed
sustainable development, public sector, into the GIS System using topographic data provided by the Topographic
environmental impact, eGovernment, Administration of East Macedonia and Thrace Region, data of the National
water management Cadastre & Mapping Agency and the spatial data of the individual projects.
The 3rd phase was the input of attributes of the individual projects, using ArcGIS
and the creation of hyperlinks to the licensing documents of every project/unit.
During the 4th phase, the inventory of water wells was made. 1800 private and 200 public water wells were fed into the GIS and
hyperlinking was established with every well’s vertical cross-section. Furthermore, the GIS inventory of water monitoring sites was
prepared (63 water wells and 10 monitoring points). Likewise, the geodatabase was updated with data from the National Water
Monitoring Network, the irrigation water monitoring points and master plans of water basins. A sub-phase was the underground
water pressure estimation of the K.Nevrokopi basin with a three-dimensional GIS software (ArcGIS 3D analyst).
The 5th phase was the integration, planning and realisation of a web-based GIS application using Arcgisonline and ArcGIS Pro
software, where the main layers of a geodatabase are represented providing information, open data and GIS procedures to the
public, stakeholders and public administration. The web-GIS application is accessible via computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
The 6th phase was the planning and creation of a web-based GIS customised editing application for the updating of the geodatabase
in an online or offline basis, in terms of indoor editing or outdoor editing using the ArcGIS Data Collector application, and ArcGIS
Pro, by users in different administrative and access permission levels.

Solidarity Barn Project – Celeiro Solidário
Submitted by the Campolide Parish Council
In 2012, the Campolide Parish Council joined the movement “Zero

EPSA2015120
Desperdício-Portugal não se pode dar Ao Lixo” being the country’s first
parish council, and so far the only one, to practice this model of supporting
Campolide Parish Council disadvantaged people and communities with economic needs and food
Rua de Campolide nº 24B shortages. This movement came into existence by a protocol signed
Lisbon, Portugal between the Municipal Councils of Lisbon and Loures and the Association
www.jf-campolide.pt Dar i Acordar, which coordinates the project.
Contact person The Solidarity Barn Project (Celeiro Solidário) began as a citizens’ movement
Mariana Pinto Ferreira that aimed to create awareness for the importance of solidarity and the
Public Relations and Image Coordinator reduction of food waste.
[email protected]
This is especially relevant in the current times, in which 18.7% of the
Size of organisation Portuguese population is at risk of extreme poverty, 26% of households
50-100; experience daily food needs and 14% have weekly food shortages.
people involved: 6-10
The Campolide Parish Council promotes the daily distribution of recovered
Type of sector meals donated by its partners. These meals have never been served, were
Public health and social welfare/affairs not exposed, never in contact with the public and are fully adequate for
consumption.
Help, elderly, disadvantaged people, The donated food complies with the standards of the Autoridade de
food waste, hunger, food shortage, food bank Segurança Alimentar e Económica (ASAE), and with the food security
standards following the procedures of Donations Good Hygienic Practices in
relation to: transportation; prepared dishes and desserts are transported in
containers tightly closed; the food temperature is maintained without variation; the transport of food is made in receptacles with all
the hygienic and conservation conditions; the transport vehicle only carries food; the food is never in contact with the ground; the
facilities and personnel that handle the food fully meet the hygienic requirements; the temperature is controlled; beneficiaries are
informed that the food should be heated only once and that it should be consumed as soon as possible.
With this project, food previously considered as waste has a nobler destiny, improving the quality of life of people, meeting their
dietary needs and minimising damage to their health reducing an unbalanced diet, rich in carbohydrates and sugar.
Celeiro Solidário works closely with the Project “Social Proximity”, which works with isolated pensioners who receive food weekly,
with the Food Bank of the Parish of Santo António de Campolide and the Parish of São Vicente de Paulo, which screen households
and forward them to the Parish Council. The project also includes families with children who experience food shortage, which is
another priority of the project. According to the national institute of statistics, about 120,000 Portuguese children suffer from food
shortage and 375,000 Portuguese are, currently, being assisted by the Portuguese Food Bank.
Local institutions, including municipalities that develop outreach work among the population, have a very important role in meeting
these needs at a local level, hence the importance of Celeiro Solidário in creating a platform for the distribution of diverse, fresh
and balanced pre-cooked meals for people in need.
The screening of the needs of users is personalised, taking into account age, dietary restrictions for health reasons or even
religious reasons, such as the consumption of certain types of meat.
Celeiro Solidário aims at raising awareness of a new social reality, with a more active and participatory citizenship.

SocialXChange – More than a Charity Shop
Submitted by the General Direction of Social Care and Child Protection,
6th District, Bucharest
SocialXchange is a new concept of social solidarity designed to promote

EPSA2015177
involvement and mutual benefit in support of community relations. It
is based on a shop, which effectively manages community resources
General Direction of Social Care and available in order to equitably redistribute them among people who want
Child Protection, 6th District, Bucharest to participate in charity, but also among those with low income who do not
3 Crangasi Road, 6th District want to depend on begging.
060331 Bucharest
Romania Conceived as an exchange network and charity system, the project
www.asistentasociala6.ro provides an important resource to the community, namely the exchange of
http://en.socialxchange.ro products that people no longer use and which people in need can obtain
by engaging in community service activities in return.
Contact person
Ms Dragoi Mihaela The concept of this charity shop is built on the desire to transparently
Head of Communication Office and efficiently collect donations of different people and to redeploy them
[email protected] among people in difficulty, giving them the opportunity to choose products
according to their real needs.
Size of organisation
500-5000; The shop uses a system of giving points for goods and services which
people involved: 1-5 determines how much each of the contributors can get based on his/her
involvement in community services. This methodology and attribution
Type of sector of points is the responsibility of a committee that evaluates each case
Employment, labour related affairs and and applies a fixed grid. Activities performed receive a number of points
gender equality; Public health and social depending on their difficulty and complexity.
welfare/affairs; Public administration,
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform Non-perishable food donations are accepted in the shop, with a reasonable
shelf space to store them a reasonable time, as well as hygiene products,
Key words of the project clothing, toys, baby supplies, books, sports equipment, etc.
Sustenance, saving, dignity, involvement,
equity, transparency, integration, cohesion, Beneficiaries of donated products are persons receiving social assistance
ecological in Bucharest’s District 6, who have access to the shop to help them
overcome the crisis and find a stable job in the real economy. Only adults
of working age or younger people who meet the legal requirements to work
are allowed to contribute to the solidarity shop.
Mrs. Laura, a young mother and a beneficiary of the services offered through SocialXchange, stated that this idea has helped her
a lot. While going through a period full of loopholes, she could still supply her household with all the products they need.
“It’s a wonderful project, designed to help people who pass temporarily through a difficult situation in financial terms. I come here
and in exchange of my work, I’m going home to my children with my bag primarily full of food and cleaning products, but can also
benefit from supplies or toys, because my kids’ smile is very important. Those who have thought about this concept realised that
there are people who have dignity and who want to work, not to receive alms, and that everyone’s needs are different from one
another. And if today I need laundry detergent, tomorrow I might want to take a storybook or food. Here you can do that!”
Under the slogan “Dare! Distinguish Step by Step” the shop awaits all of Bucharest’s citizens to donate and contribute to its success.

Home Debt Intermediation Service
Submitted by the Barcelona Provincial Council
Mortgage defaults are one of the most dramatic effects of the crisis having
EPSA2015096
led to the loss of many families’ homes. Between 2007 and 2014, 73,230
mortgages were foreclosed in the Barcelona province and 604,484 in Spain.
Barcelona Provincial Council
Recinte mundet. Edifici Serradell Trabal. Home Debt Intermediation Service “Servei d’Intermediació en Deutes
Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171 d’Habitatge” (SIDH), protects the right to housing by preventing the loss
08035 Barcelona, Spain of homes due to mortgage loan repayment difficulties. SIDH offers free
www.diba.cat specialised legal advice and intermediation with financial entities to defend
www.diba.cat/en/web/benestar/sidh resolution proposals. Through a network of 28 service points, SIDH covers
279 municipalities with a potential population of 2,975,000 people. Between
Contact person 2013 and 2014, the service was provided to 1,533 people and 736 case
Carlota Pallàs Torruella files were closed. The success rate in 2014 was 76.6%.
International Project Manager
Department of Human Services SIDH is based on a partnership between various public administrations
[email protected] and private agents. Promoted by Barcelona Provincial Council (provincial
government), SIDH is offered in conjunction with the Autonomous Government
Size of organisation of Catalonia (regional government), 28 town councils and county councils
500-5000; (local governments), and 8 bar associations of the Barcelona province.
The Barcelona Provincial Council, as an intermediate local authority,
Type of sector promotes and coordinates SIDH through the Department of Human
Justice, police, human rights and security; Services, which has the purpose of assuring welfare, quality of life and
Public health and social welfare/affairs; social cohesion through services encompassing people’s entire life cycle;
Public administration, modernisation, and through the Department of Territory and Sustainability, which provides
institutional affairs, reform; Taxation, support to municipalities in housing policies.
customs, finances
The Generalitat de Catalunya, as the government of the Autonomous Region
Key words of the project of Catalonia, has competences in housing policy and in social welfare.
Right to housing, mortgage foreclosures, The Generalitat takes part in SIDH through the Ofideute service of the
multilevel governance, social inclusion, Housing Agency of Catalonia, which is a regional service offering over-
social welfare, co-management, indebted citizens a channel of direct intermediation with financial entities.
intermediation, conflict resolution Ofideute is exclusively in charge of intermediation with financial entities,
providing access to these entities, based on its expertise, legitimacy and
strength as it represents the autonomous regional government. The bar
associations offer services directly to citizens, such as Legal Guidance Service “Servei d’Orientació Jurídica” (SOJ). They assure high-
level professional legal assistance in the counselling of people who receive SIDH’s help, and in the drafting of intermediation proposals.
SIDH is offered through the 28 local entities of the Barcelona province, which assure its proximity to citizens. Thus, in the circuit
followed by the SIDH process, citizens begin by addressing the specialised municipal services, which inform, screen and arrange
an interview with the SIDH specialist local lawyer. The lawyer is in charge of counselling citizens and of drafting an intermediation
proposal, which is sent telematically to Ofideute for its presentation to the financial entities. Through this governance model,
based on subsidiarity and on equality of rights’ principles, SIDH assures assistance to the province’s whole population regardless
of whether citizens live in a small, medium or big municipality. In addition to equity, the model combines proximity, effectiveness,
integral support, one-stop service (access to all resources from a single point) and efficiency (avoiding duplicities, optimising
resources and utilising economies of scale).
SIDH’s methodological premises are: prevention: anticipation of payment default; a commitment to out-of-court formulas for the
management of conflict resolution (intermediation); centralising the negotiation with the financial entities at regional level since it
is more effective to negotiate than at local level; and the empowerment of citizens, making them active agents in the resolution of
their financial problems.

Rijeka’s eBenefits
Submitted by the Municipality of Rijeka, Department of Health and Social Welfare
Since 1993, the City of Rijeka has been providing assistance to its citizens
EPSA2015109
facing extremely unfavourable living conditions due to which they are
unable to independently meet some of their basic human needs. These
Municipality of Rijeka are the poorest citizens without any possibility to live on their own income,
Department of Health and Social Welfare citizens that earn a very low income and are at risk of poverty, certain
Korzo 16 categories of disabled people, seriously ill people and victims of the
51000 Rijeka Homeland War, all under threat of social exclusion.
Croatia
www.rijeka.hr Recent research into the efficiency of social measures aimed at protection
from the beneficiaries’ point of view, has shown that certain groups of these
Contact person beneficiaries do not receive the assistance they are entitled to. One of the
Ankica Perhat reasons for this may lie in insufficient communication with administration.
Head of the Department of health and
social welfare The project Rijeka’s eBenefits has been developed with the target of
[email protected] improving beneficiaries’ access to information, as well as increasing
efficiency of the city’s social welfare system and improving communication
Size of organisation between city administration and citizens in general. A multidisciplinary team
100-500; composed of professionals from various departments within the Rijeka
people involved: >15 City Administration (a psychologist, an IT programmer, an eGovernment
specialist), representatives of intermediary organisations and associations
Type of sector is responsible for developing the service. (Hereto, the involvement of
Education (higher and lower), training and associations representing the people with hearing and visual impairments
learning; Justice, police, human rights and is to be emphasised.)
security; Information society, technology,
media and audio-visual; Public health and Rijeka’s eBenefits is an innovative eService because it is unique in the
social welfare/affairs; Public administration, Republic of Croatia, and very user-friendly; it is simple for administration
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform; and complies with W3C standards. Moreover, the complete service is a
Science, research, innovation holistic solution for improving the provision of the social welfare service in
the City and is innovative, as it uses a multi-channel model.
Key words or the project
Social programme, eBenefits, user-friendly This project encourages social inclusion of the poor and socially excluded
eService, social inclusion, digital inclusion people at two levels: by encouraging digital inclusion as a precondition for
social inclusion and by facilitating availability of social assistance.
Various stakeholders such as social welfare experts, education centres, intermediary organisations (social institutions, health
institutions, NGOs) and local and national media were included in the process of developing and implementing the Rijeka’s
eBenefits service.
Project sustainability is guaranteed by technological progress in the community, and also by provision of free IT courses for
marginalised groups, by cooperation with the civil and public sectors in developing strategic priorities of the City of Rijeka and by
the City’s participation in international projects.
In technical terms, a software platform developed for the Rijeka’s eBenefits can be adjusted and applied to any other service of the
City of Rijeka or to any other social welfare service provided by the state or any public body.
The most significant results of the project are 1,500 users that have received necessary information through the Rijeka’s eBenefits,
reduced pressure on City employees, and finally increased City of Rijeka transparency resulting in the title of the most transparent
city in the Republic of Croatia in 2014.

Social District Teams
Submitted by the Municipality of Zaanstad
In 2012, the Dutch central government announced that in 2015 municipal

EPSA2015240
governments would become responsible for youth social care, long-term
care for the sick and elderly (Wmo and Awbz) and job placement and welfare
Municipality of Zaanstad services (Participatiewet). Municipalities, already responsible for part of
Stadhuisplein 100 the social domain assignments, would take over these responsibilities from
1506 MZ Zaandam central and regional government.
The Netherlands
www.zaanstad.nl The main motivation for the ‘three decentralisations’ were the rising costs of
swtzaanstad.nl maintaining the Dutch ‘welfare state’. This system is no longer sustainable
with the aging population. One interpretation of the welfare state was that
Contact person it also deprived citizens of their own initiative and made them too easily
A. Halff dependent on professional caregivers. Thus the decentralisation underlines
Strategic Adviser a societal shift: moving from the welfare state to participatory society.
[email protected]
The decentralisation provided a great challenge for the municipalities. They
Size of organisation are not just faced with new responsibilities, but the changes are paired
500-5000; with substantial budget cuts of 10%-30%. However, opportunities arise as
people involved: >15 well. Municipalities were given a single budget for these assignments, and
the freedom to carry out the decentralisation as they see fit. In addition,
Type of sector municipalities are now in control of nearly the entire social domain. This
Regional policy and development, enables them to create an integrated organisation for support that can provide
decentralisation more effective care with less bureaucracy and in a more cost effective way.
Key words of the project In 2012 and 2013, Zaanstad initiated the change in cooperation with the
Social district teams, decentralisation, service providers active in social support, youth care and social security, with
co-creation, learning by doing, participatory whom the municipality had a standing subsidiary relationship. A ‘new-for-old’
society regulation reduces the subsidiary in three years’ time, making funds available
for existing contractors and the municipality to build up a new approach.
In 2013, pilot studies were initiated on working with ‘Social District Teams’. Unlike most Dutch municipalities, Zaanstad chose to
put the Social district teams to tender outside the municipal organisation and with multiple contractors. This approach provided
room for the knowledge and skills of professionals to develop their own (innovative) approach per district. Exchange of experience
among contractors and the municipality has been made a tender requirement. Based on experience the lead contractors and the
municipality develop effective working methods in co-creation.
Zaanstad developed this approach by springing into action quickly and learning by doing. Gathering practical experience was
coupled concurrently with research. For example, quantitative research (“Factlab”) showed that the development of an integrated
approach was indeed needed, because many households deal with multifaceted problems and a combination of social services.
Action research (“Heavenly Mud”) showed that households felt the desire to direct their problem-solving process themselves.
Consequently, households are assigned one contact person from the Social district team. Together they develop an integrated
approach focused on re-attaining directive control. They hereby assume household members’ own capabilities and where needed
(temporarily) supported by social services. The teams are provided with space for consideration for tailoring solutions, sometimes
found through simple, albeit nonstandard methods, and invest in preventive support.
In 2014 the Social district teams officially got under way in Zaanstad, one year before the municipality became actually responsible
for the new social care assignments. Results show that the approach leads to greater initiative taken by households over their own
lives, more effective interventions, increased customer satisfaction and a reduction in appeals to more serious or complex care and
thus a reduction in government spending.

Every Child Safe Forever (ECSF project) – The Development
of Relentless Family Case Management and the End of Parole
and Other Court Orders
Submitted by the Youth Protection Amsterdam Region
Nominee
Youth Protection Amsterdam Region is a certified institution responsible for

EPSA2015262
providing specialised care to families whose children face severe safety
threats. The organisation aims to guarantee children’s permanent security,
Youth Protection Amsterdam Region and a safe upbringing. This requires services that stabilise their living
Overschiestraat 57 environment and provide them with perspectives to reach adulthood as
1062 HN Amsterdam full participants of society. Thus, the organisation’s objectives are firmly
The Netherlands anchored in its mission statement: ‘Every child safe forever’.
www.jbra.nl
http://ggwiki.wikispaces.com Youth Protection Amsterdam Region is called upon when children (0-18,
or even up to 23 years) are under threat of becoming victims of mental,
Contact person sexual and physical abuse or neglect. This concerns children in families
Martine van der Horn that have problems in the areas of work, income, debt, housing, education,
Senior Communication Adviser socio-physiological issues, addiction, (domestic) violence or criminality,
[email protected] but also children who are affected by problematic divorce. Finally, youths
who have committed a felony may end up with the agency by order of the
Size of organisation juvenile court. Within all these cases, top priority is given to breaking the
500-5000; transgenerational cycle.
Youth Protection Amsterdam Region operates within a chain of public and
Type of sector private social services, youth care and education, of which the majority
Public health and social welfare/affairs is dependent on municipal funding. So-called ‘neighbourhood teams’ that
are enacted by the municipality may request for its services when their
Key words or the project basic forms of family-assistance cannot guarantee the children’s safety.
Youth care and welfare, social return on Moreover, the agency participates in network discussions with all regional
investment, Functional Family Parole (FFP), and (inter)national stakeholders to stimulate the sharing of knowledge,
cost effectiveness, large scale social impact, influence on policies and provide professional training programmes.
intensive family case management, radical
innovators The approach includes the effective elements of the Delta method, family
group conferences, the multi-problem family approach and Functional
Family Parole Services (FFPS), of which the latter is the most crucial.
Practices and training programmes are combined with and modified through research programmes that the social workers develop,
test and implement themselves. The professionals combine the frameworks of youth protection and youth rehabilitation following
the principle: ‘one family, one plan, one worker’. At its core, they co-develop a tailor-made family improvement plan with the
families, and all required service providers. This plan forms the basis for a multi-staged programme of approximately 6-9 months
that the family has to complete entirely. In the final weeks of the guidance the family and the worker will make agreements for the
future together. In the final stage the family practices all that has been learned in the former steps, as part of a relapse prevention
plan they construct with the worker. Six months after case closure, the social worker pays a visit to the families to see how they are
doing and to repeat the risk assessment.
Youth Protection Amsterdam Region constantly tries to stay away from court measures. Although legal enforcement like custody
measures, visitation regulations, or juvenile rehabilitation measures are still an unavoidable part of daily work, they have managed
to reduce both the number of families under custody and forced out of home placements by respectively 50-60% since 2011. These
results indicate that some crucial organisational and professional reforms have shown real potential to dramatically improve the
quality of the agency’s services for both, the children and their families. And since keeping every child permanently safe is the
organisation’s mission, it constantly seeks for ways to achieve this.

From Settlement to Employment
Submitted by VIVA, Bamble Kommune
Nominee Cross-Cutting Award
“From settlement to employment” is an introductory programme which is

EPSA2015159
jointly carried out by the Department for Welfare and Labour Affairs of the
Norwegian municipality of Bamble (NAV) and VIVA (a municipal-owned
VIVA, Bamble Kommune organisation in the field of integration, adult education and activation) in
Storgata 8 order to better integrate refugees into Norwegian society. Consultants in the
3970 Langesund area of labour affairs and pensions from the municipality of Bamble work
Norway together with adult educators and teachers from VIVA for the programmes
offered to the refugees.
Contact person
Åshild Tveraaen When refugees arrive in Norway and the municipality of Bamble they are
Project Manager met by a team consisting of an adviser for the introductory programme,
[email protected] teachers and consultants from welfare and labour affairs. In co-operation
with the refugees; they then take track of the refugees’ background,
Size of organisation education, work experience, language and other skills, their interests and
1-25; aims they want to achieve in Norway. With the help of this information,
people involved: 6-10 individual integration plans are compiled for each refugee.
Type of sector Thus, from the very beginning, they participate in a work-related activity at
Education (higher and lower), training and least one day a week, according to their skills and aims. Foreigners who
learning; Employment, labour related affairs are able to communicate in Norwegian are matched with different jobs that
and gender equality; Public health and can give them relevant experience for their future. This initiative is very
social welfare/affairs beneficial for them as they can learn from the day-to-day business activities,
improve their language skills and get to know many people, thus building
Key words of the project up their own network within the enterprise. To be better equipped for the
Language learning, learning culture, labour job search afterwards, refugees can get a certificate for this work period.
market integration, integration, refugees In addition, by working once a week, people automatically learn about
the Norwegian culture and way of life, which facilitates their integration
and contribution to social and working life tremendously. Moreover, this
supports the integration work of VIVA and NAV.
During this introductory programme, teachers visit the refugees once a week in order to assist them in their language learning
process. Depending on the tailor-made plans for each person, the adequate learning pathway is decided together with them (e.g.
further education such as vocational education and training for people without academic background).
Those refugees who are not able to work receive assistance (guidance and financial support) from NAV during the introductory
programme. For example, there are social activities like cooking, knitting or sewing, etc., which help them to integrate and get to
know new people.
This programme is built on the belief that social activities contribute to people’s wellbeing as everyone would like to be part of
society, family and work. By looking at people’s individual skills, VIVA and NAV help them find a meaningful way of their lives as
many of the refugees lost everything. It is VIVA’s and NAV’s philosophy to assist refugees in building up new and good lives in
Norway based on their individual skills and resources matched with the Norwegian labour market, education system and cultural
life.

LGBT-Friendly Ljubljana
Submitted by the Municipality of Ljubljana
The City of Ljubljana actively follows the principles of equality, inclusivity

EPSA2015124
and accessibility which are reflected in all its policies. Special attention is
dedicated to all those who are particularly vulnerable due to their particular
Municipality of Ljubljana individual circumstances. This includes all those who continue to suffer
Mestni trg 1 misunderstanding, prejudice or unfair treatment because of their sexual
1000 Ljubljana orientation or gender expression.
Slovenia
www.ljubljana.si With the goals of significantly reducing homophobia and empowering
lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT), the City of
Contact person Ljubljana addresses special care and attention to the LGBT community.
Simona Topolinjak It offers diverse support to the development, organisation and
Senior Adviser implementation of projects and programmes for the LGBT community.
[email protected] The City offers them financial (funding through annual public tenders) and
spatial support.
500-5000; In 2014 a new gay-friendly cafe opened under the Mayor’s patronage on
people involved: 1-5 City premises near the main entrance to the City Hall. It also supports and
organises various awareness-raising actions. In cooperation with NGOs and
Type of sector experts, the City of Ljubljana has published a brochure entitled Rainbow
Education (higher and lower), training and Ljubljana, which showcases an active and productive LGBT community in
learning; Justice, police, human rights and Ljubljana and introduces various activities by Ljubljana’s LGBT community.
security; Public health and social welfare/ Currently, the City is implementing a project entitled ‘LGBT-friendly certificate’.
affairs This idea originated within the City’s Health and Social Care Department, and
the entire project has grown in close partnership with NGOs. The purpose of
Key words of the project the certificate is primarily to raise public awareness.
LGBT, accessibility, inclusivity, equal
opportunities, awareness raising, NGO The Certificate will be awarded to all public and private organisations that
support, education of organisation leaders, inform their co-workers on LGBT-related themes. In this way they ensure
Rainbow Cities Network within their organisation: a better understanding of the basic human rights
of all people (including LGBT people); an inclusive environment for LGBT-
colleagues; raised awareness among staff regarding the provision of
products and services for LGBT users; increased sensitivity to detecting violations of the rights of LGBT people in the workers’ and
consumers’ environment.
The City of Ljubljana is proud of the established partnerships with various LGBT organisations through years of joint actions.
Thus, the Mayor is the Patron of the annual Gay Pride parade. Besides, last year, the City of Ljubljana was co-organiser of a
European Gay & Lesbian Sport Federation (EGLSF) conference. The City is aware of the need to support activities that promote
wider social relationships towards the LGBT community. City support also manifests itself through the rainbow flag, which flies from
the facade of City Hall for special events.
It is the City of Ljubljana’s hope that other Slovenian cities follow its good practices and that perhaps its certificate will be extended
to other towns and cities and even become a national project. Its best practices have high visibility beyond national borders –
presentations of the City’s activities abroad are always well received, and the City has also been welcomed into the European
Rainbow Cities Network.
Via multiple smaller steps the City of Ljubljana will be able to achieve major shifts in people’s minds and certainly contribute
significantly to reducing homophobia, and perhaps even contribute to a national systemic solution.
78 Supra-Local/Local Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches

The Future Education Vision of Reykjanesbaer Town
Submitted by the Reykjanesbaer Municipal Education Office
Since the year 2002, the Future Educational Vision of Reykjanesbaer

EPSA2015227
Town has been formulated for a period of four years at a time. In 2011, the
ambitious goal was set to bring all the town’s pre-, primary and secondary
Reykjanesbaer Municipal Education Office schools to the top of national rankings in education. The agreement is
Tjarnargata 12 a statement of intent to improve the educational success of children in
Iceland Reykjanesbaer and to integrate both literacy and mathematics into all
classes at pre-school levels.
Contact person
Gylfi Jon Gylfason Reykjanesbaer Town has traditionally been a community with low levels of
Commissioner of Education formal education, low household income and substantial unemployment.
[email protected] National rankings of educational success have the town’s schools
placing well below average. The public perception in Iceland towards
Size of organisation Reykjanesbaer Town reflected this ranking. On top of that, Reykjanesbaer
500-5000; was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis. The general aim was also to
people involved: >15 educate the community out of the crisis.
Type of sector The role of the Future Vision can be described as twofold. On the one
Education (higher and lower), training and hand, it creates support and discipline for the town’s schools, while on the
learning other hand it provides a template that directly affects the daily schedules
of each school. This entails emphasis on literacy and mathematics, regular
Key words of the project screening of students, assessments, good cooperation between schools
Screening, literacy, maths, educational and parents, and finally research and regular consultation with higher
vision education academia.
A strong start in these two disciplines is a key to success as this provides

the best foundation for future achievements in the town’s education. Screening in literacy/reading and mathematics is of utmost
importance in the vision’s procedure as the screening is in line with the newest research that has pointed to the correlation between
success and early intervention.
A key to the success of the Future Vision is a good cooperation between the school and parents. The school encourages and guides
parents by providing them the tools to create a supportive environment at home in literacy and maths. Immediately after the Future
Vision was introduced, a robust effort was made to energise all those involved and to initiate a positive open dialogue. The Future
Vision very quickly made its mark on daily routine of schools who found in it encouragement, a focus and a framework, while at the
same time having the flexibility to develop their own methods within the vision’s aim.
The national exams are taken by all 4th and 7th graders in Icelandic schools and provide a basis for evaluating children’s progresses
in literacy and maths. Since the Future Vision was launched grades have gone up considerably in literacy and maths and are now
at national average and beyond. The next steps, besides continuing on this path, will be looking at other aspects of the school
environment, such as the children’s well-being, equality and democracy. The main challenge is, as it has always been, to motivate
students, to create inquisitive minds that have the necessary tools to take on the challenges that await them. Work on convergence
between pre-, primary and secondary schools will also continue to be developed.
What will follow is a positive image of Reykjanesbaer Town schools which will only add to the efforts of bringing them to the very
top of the Icelandic school system.
Supra-Local/Local Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 79

Sprouts of Karşıyaka
Submitted by the Karşıyaka Municipality
The actual goal of this project is to support successful university students

EPSA2015136
throughout their education who have no or insufficient income and live in
the İzmir Karşıyaka province border. At the same time, it is aimed to include
Karşıyaka Municipality the local administration of Karşıyaka in maintaining equal opportunities for
Bahriye Üçok Bulvarı. No. 5 students.
Karşıyaka, Izmir
Turkey The project came into life based on the Constitutional Court law of 2008,
www.karsiyaka.bel.tr which prevents municipalities from giving direct scholarships to university
www.karsiyakaninfilizleri.org students, which creates difficult living conditions for students. In order
to still enable students to benefit from scholarships, the Municipality of
Contact person Karşıyaka created the project Sprouts of Karşıyaka by bringing together 153
Yiğit İstanbul apartment building managers for the first pilot and announcing the project
Project Coordinator throughout Turkey with the help of a major press conference. Students
[email protected] who are selected for this type of scholarship receive an amount of 300 TL
directly paid into their accounts by apartment building managements or
Size of organisation volunteers for a duration of ten months. Thus, there is no cash inflow to
500-5000; or cash outflow from the municipality. The Karşıyaka Municipality directs
people involved: 6-10 students benefitting from the scholarship to the collaborating apartment
buildings and thus ensures the coordination between two sides.
Type of sector
Education (higher and lower), training and A municipal commission of six people including leading experts such
learning; Public health and social welfare/ as psychologists and sociologists identifies the students eligible for this
affairs; Public administration, modernisation, scholarship scheme. The most important eligibility criteria are the income
institutional affairs, reform; Sports, youth, level of the family and the academic achievements of the student. Apart
culture and art from that, being a Turkish citizen, a university student and living in the
Karşıyaka province border are required. It is the students’ responsibility
Key words of the project to gather all relevant documents and apply to the project unit at the
Youth, scholarship, university, buildings, municipality for the scholarship. Students qualifying for the scholarship are
solidarity, education, students informed by a jury. Subsequently, students are directly connected with the
cooperating building managers.
Apartment buildings for cooperation in this scholarship scheme were identified by a field force of ten people. The first step was
a communication campaign advertising the scheme with posters and brochures in the apartment buildings. In a second step,
the project coordinator and the team met the apartment building managements one by one and informed them of the project’s
operation. Those apartment buildings willing to contribute to this scheme then delivered their applications to the municipality. The
cooperation is based on a “sincerity protocol” with the respective building management outlining the conditions of the scheme
and obligation to accept the assigned students. Building managers benefit from positive visibility thanks to honouring plates at the
entrance of their buildings informing about their involvement in the project. Apart from cooperation with building managers, the
Municipality of Karşıyaka also collaborates with associations, clubs and other communities eager to contribute to the project and
supports them in return in reaching as many students as possible.
Karşıyaka Municipality strives to include its citizens in the local administration process and to manage the city together with them.
This project is one initiative to make this goal a reality as different citizens from Karşıyaka across social classes are brought
together. The scholarship is considered a success counting already 200 students benefitting from it.
This project has set an example for other district municipalities. Thanks to these efforts, students can follow their education
independently, without the constraints of any institution or any organisation and benefit from equal opportunities.

Improved Customer-Oriented Policing in an Age of Austerity
Submitted by the Garda Síochána Division of Dublin North Central Police Service
Nominee
In the context of austerity, diminishing resources, reducing salaries,

EPSA2015072
increasing customer expectations and police reform (doing more with less),
the senior management team in the Garda Síochána Division of Dublin
Garda Síochána Division of Dublin North Central Police Service, supported by research, set out to explore
North Central Police Service the market-orientation performance relationship in a policing context.
Garda Headquarters They sought to achieve this through a focus on the antecedents and
Phoenix Park consequences associated with the deliberate engendering of a market-
Dublin 8 orientation in the eighteen square kilometre area of Dublin’s North Inner city.
Ireland The purpose of the change in approach was to explore the effectiveness of
employing a market orientation construct as a framework for transitioning
Contact person from a traditional reactive model of policing to a more effective, proactive
Chief Superintendent Patrick Leahy customer-oriented policing approach. It was anticipated that the knowledge
Divisional Officer generated from this experience would afford new insights and so inform
[email protected] policing policy and practice in achieving what the international research
clearly indicates is the preferred reform model for policing, and to facilitate
Size of organisation the generation, dissemination and responsiveness to information pertaining
500-5000; to the current and future needs of customers with a view to improving the
people involved: >15 quality of life in communities.
Type of sector The research examined the police failure to adequately explore and exploit
Justice, police, human rights and security marketing logic in the past and the theory that underpins the market-
orientation performance relationship which indicates that the adoption of
Key words or the project such an orientation results in improved performance for the organisation,
Policing and the market orientation its people and its customers. This approach required the police to engage
performance relationship in activities geared towards developing an understanding of customers’
current and future needs and the factors affecting them, sharing this
understanding across departments and the various departments engaging
in activities designed to meet those customer needs. This reflects an integrated, interrelated and interdependent construct which is
based on behaviours and processes, and which can be used as a framework for the deliberate engendering of a customer-oriented
policing approach. The concept of a market orientation is centrally underpinned by a customer orientation and it is internationally
accepted that a focus on the customer is central to achieving this orientation.
The senior management team in the D.M.R North Central engaged in appropriate segmentation, targeting and positioning with
a view to providing a sufficient standard of service to improve performance and enhance public confidence, and therefore, they
undertook to change the existing policing strategy and restructure to accommodate such an approach. The policing division
subsequently engaged in a process of geographic, demographic, socio-economic and psychographic segmentation, targeted
each customer group to generate information pertaining to their current and future needs (conducting over 15,000 interviews with
customers and stakeholders), engaged in continuous dissemination of that information between policing departments and crafted
appropriate customer-unique responses to meet the identified needs.
An independent assessment in February 2015 by the Excellence Ireland Quality Association (EIQA) awarded the Division the ‘Q’
Mark for Quality Management Systems Level 2 and reported that: “the programme of change they have embarked on since 2009
has delivered significant internal improvements in the way the Division operates and that the market orientation of this approach,
which is a departure from traditional models of policing, has already delivered improved results in crime and quality of life outcomes.”
Supra-Local/Local Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 81

The Potential Profile
Submitted by the Ikast-Brande Municipality
High quality day-care centres are of major significance for the individual
EPSA2015133
child’s future prospects, especially for socially at-risk children.
Ikast-Brande Municipality The Potential Profile ensures development of high quality day-care centres
Bellisvej 2 via a new and effective form of partnership between public departments.
8766 Nørre Snede High quality makes it possible for all children, irrespective of conditions and
Denmark background, to gain optimal possibilities for well-being, development and
www.ikast-brande.dk learning - and to feel valuable participants in the community.
Contact person The Potential Profile builds on the visions of human rights and social
Heidi Bak Nielsen justice which derive from the UN’s Convention on Human Rights and
Development Consultant its Convention on the Rights of the Child and UNESCO’s Salamanca
[email protected] Declaration. The work on social inclusion of at-risk children in both the
short and the long term is an important factor in securing the community´s
Size of organisation cohesion and makes the public sector an important partner in the creation
500-5000; of a better society.
Creating high quality municipal day-care centres is a challenge involving
Type of sector many players in the public sector. It has been possible to map the quality
Education (higher and lower), training and in day-care centres, but it has not been possible to couple the map with
learning interventions which can ensure an improvement in quality. The Potential
Profile ensures development of high quality day-care centres by creating
Key words of the project a close correlation between the map of the centre´s quality and a tool for
High quality day-care, socially at-risk intervention. Tailor-made effective actions precisely suiting the individual
children, new procedures and methods centre’s need for quality improvement are prepared.
Danish studies have shown that actions in relation to at-risk children have
the wrong focus and are initiated too late. The Potential Profile changes inappropriate procedures in the municipal system and
creates resource-oriented effective and preventive early action. Employees in administration gain new tools and work in a new way, so
that they become better at creating effective measures for skills development methodologies of staff.
The Potential Profile has a well-defined implementation strategy. Care is taken to ensure that the employees in the day-care centres
gain new and research-based knowledge, and integrate relevant new pedagogical tools in their everyday life via education, training,
collegial coaching and supervision.
Three day-care centres have worked with the project from 2012-2014. The results show a drop in the number of children in difficulty
and that the employees now see more resources and skills in this group of children. The project has a positive influence on the
development of the employees’ relational competence and the sense of the community in the day-care centre, e.g. the employees’
ability in positive group management and the creation of a positive children’s environment via clear values and rules. The project
also has a positive effect on the centre’s organisation and structures. There is an increase in the employees’ knowledge and
competency to act, especially in relation to their experience of being able to look after needs among children in difficulty.
The project also creates positive cultural changes in relation to shared values, and new pedagogical practices and learning
processes. The staff finds that the project has increased their professional level via new knowledge and new pedagogical tools.
The project provides a common foundation in the pedagogical work.
The project is now being extended to additional day-care centres in the municipality, and initiatives have been taken to enable other
day-care centres in other municipalities, and other countries, to work with the Potential Profile.

New Sustainable Management Model – Street Cleaning
Services and Solid Waste Collection
Submitted by the Public Sanitation and Environmental Protection Municipal
Limited Liability Company, Seville
EU Funded
A Public Sanitation and Environmental Protection Municipal Limited

EPSA2015172
Liability Company “Limpieza Pública y Protección Ambiental S.A. Municipal”
(LIPASAM), was created in March 1986 to attend to the City of Seville.
Public Sanitation and Environmental The average number of employees in 2014 was around 1,560. At its
Protection Municipal Limited Liability disposal, it has an extensive fleet of vehicles, cleaning facilities and
Company recycling areas, and its annual budget amounts to €96 million.
Calle Virgen de la Oliva S/N
Seville, Spain In 2011, LIPASAM was in the last phase of an economic-financial plan
www.lipasam.es for 2009-2011, designed to restructure the business in order to eliminate
a previously acquired debt exceeding €50 million and to bring back
Contact person the company to positive numbers. This situation was caused by poor
Francisco José Juan Rodríguez management of the business and its expenditures. There was a wage
Manager freeze, investments were not made, there was a considerable increase
[email protected] in waste processing, and the possible action of the company was limited.
LIPASAM was exhausted, in the middle of an economic crisis, and it
Size of organisation was necessary to increase city cleaning activities while reducing an
500-5000; unsustainable budget for the City Government.
The new model has been created around four central pillars: vision, culture,
Type of sector presence, and change management. The objective – a solid and healthy
Environment, climate change, agriculture company, very professionalised, with continuous training of staff and better
(incl. food safety) and fishery working conditions, technically developed, efficient and productive.
Key words of the project A new company policy has laid out the mission and defined new values:
Sustainable, efficiency, social aware, dedication to service, efficiency, transparent management and good
waste management, city cleaning corporate governance, ethical compliance of the law and of company
guidelines, rational use of resources, protection of the environment, and
commitment to the City of Seville, while applying principles of social
responsibility, quality, protection of the environment, and work health and safety. There have been many social and economic
changes that have taken place in the business and to its staff. These regard work habits, new systems of work, and timetables and
shifts, and are conciliatory changes with the objective of putting the company at the service of citizens.
LIPASAM has also obtained a series of certifications and accreditations, i.e. Certification for the Environmental Management
System, in accordance with ISO 14.001. It has renewed its ISO 9001 Certification. OHSAS 18.001 Certification, regarding Work
Health and Safety. And EMAS Certification for Recycling Areas.
A new model was designed that has allowed for the homogenisation of processing all over the city, redistribution of staff among
the cleaning facilities and shifts, availability of service on Saturdays and Sundays, changing the rotation of workers for uniform
scheduling, expanding service coverage to 24 hours, improving the fleet of vehicles, and increasing service productivity.
The amount of mechanisation has increased, neighbourhood cleaning efforts have intensified, service has been extended to
24 hours a day, including weekends, 365 days a year. New machinery has been acquired and electric vehicles have been introduced,
along with electric blowers and an electric tricycle, to provide increased mobility.
LIPASAM has been able to reduce the environmental impact of its activities, foreseeing and minimising them, especially with
regards to consumption of water and energy as well as the generation of waste.
A reorganisation of the company’s finances has taken place based on the results of this three-year period, which has allowed
positive equity to total €5.1 million, compared to 2011’s total of €0.7 million in negative equity. The decrease in spending compared
to the year 2011 has been possible thanks to the policies of controlled spending and improved efficiency.
Supra-Local/Local Project / Sound public finance 83

Statistics
Out of a total of 266 projects received, 160 projects came from the European/National/Regional administrative
level. In the statistics below you can see the number of applications by country, the size of the submitting
organisations and the sectors covered.
Applications by Country
Austria (14)
Belgium (6)
Bulgaria (3)
Cyprus (1)
Denmark (2)
Estonia (1)
EU Institutions (3)
France (1)
FYR Macedonia (1)
Germany (2)
Greece (10)
Hungary (7)
Ireland (2)
Italy (10)
Kosovo (1)
Latvia (5)
Lithuania (15)
Luxembourg (1)
Malta (2)
Montenegro (1)
The Netherlands (10)
Poland (2)
Portugal (11)
Romania (2)
Slovakia (3)
Slovenia (3)
Spain (28)
Sweden (10)
Switzerland (1)
Turkey (1)
United Kingdom (1)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
84 Best Practices Catalogue / European/National/Regional administrative level

1-25 (10)
25-50 (16)
50-100 (15)
100-500 (41)
500-5000 (46)
>5000 (32)
Total: 160
Sectors covered *
15 Other... 11%
Best Practices Catalogue / European/National/Regional administrative level 85

The following 37 BPC project executive summaries under this administrative category are presented according to
the four indicative areas:
Among these BPC projects, we indicated the 3 Nominees for the European/National/Regional administrative level and
1 more Nominee for the Cross-Cutting Award. In addition this icon shows that a project was fully or partially
financed by EU supportive actions.
The graph below indicates the number of Best Practice Certificates by country within this level.
Best Practice Certificates (BPC) by Country

Austria (7)
Denmark (2)
EU Agency (1)
Germany (1)
Greece (1)
Hungary (1)
Latvia (1)
Lithuania (1)
The Netherlands (6)
Portugal (7)
Spain (4)
Sweden (4)
United Kingdom (1)
0 5 10
86 Best Practices Catalogue / European/National/Regional administrative level

FremKom – Future Competencies in Northern Jutland
Submitted by the North Denmark Region
Nominee Cross-Cutting Award EU Funded
“FremKom is a success”. This was the conclusion of an evaluation of

EPSA2015187
FremKom made by Rambøll Management Consulting. FremKom is a Danish
contraction of “Labour and competence needs of the future”. The project
North Denmark Region was initiated in 2007 by the North Denmark Growth Forum and supported
Niels Bohrs Vej 30 by the North Denmark Regional Council. Their wish was to provide research
9220 Aalborg on labour market trends, especially to ensure that the labour force will have
Denmark the necessary competencies to meet the demands and requirements of the
www.rn.dk companies in the future and thereby secure growth in the region.
Contact person Growth Forum is a partnership-based regional forum joining together
Lone Johansen partners from the regional council, municipal councils, labour markets
Project Manager stakeholders and educational and knowledge institutions. Growth Forum is
[email protected] a strategic forum responsible for prioritising the European structural funds.
Size of organisation The FremKom collaboration was set up as a strategic cross-cutting
>5000; cooperation between many different stakeholders representing the entire
people directly involved: >15 geographical region. The project is organised in a triple helix organisation,
with stakeholders from the educational system, the employment system
Type of sector and the business system which is essential for the success of the project.
Education (higher and lower), training and
learning; Employment, labour related affairs FremKom is a project whose strategic aim is to focus on which competence
and gender equality; Regional policy and needs in Northern Jutland are relevant now and 5 years ahead. The FremKom
development, decentralisation cooperation is built upon three phases:
1. Analysis – gaining new knowledge about competence needs of the future.
Key words of the project 2. Debate and dialogue – based on the results of the analysis both
Stakeholder involvement, competence regionally and locally.
development, innovative cooperative, 3. Initiatives – to support the activities and initiatives which emerge from
employment, regional development, growth the previous debate and dialogue.
The core in FremKom is therefore a strong cross-disciplinary collaboration,

which creates a strategic knowledge platform, which enables the stakeholders to visualise the future challenges and act upon them
individually or jointly by recommendations to the political system. Furthermore, the public sector is under heavy financial pressure
and the FremKom cooperation organises this involvement and analysis through relatively small budgets.
The evaluation of Rambøll shows that the results of FremKom are well known to strategic stakeholders in the North Denmark Region
and actively used by them. In order to do so, FremKom’s role as a politically independent project is underlined by respondents.
Because the analysis is considered neutral, FremKom’s results are perceived as being highly credible and trustworthy. This gives
FremKom increased impact and enables FremKom to act as a shared and uniting framework for discussing competences.
Based on the results of the FremKom analyses, a number of additional analyses were carried out, e.g. within the construction
sector, where the FremKom analysis showed that there would be a shortage of labour. Consequently a number of initiatives and
projects have been set up, such as ”Qualification for new jobs”. This was a project supported by Growth Forum where educational
courses were set up for unemployed people within areas which match the needs of the labour market according to FremKom.
The project ”Co-operation and Partnership” was a regional project, whose purpose was to upskill employees with a short education
in SME’s based on the results from the FremKom analysis.
The FremKom analysis is also used when planning educational courses and used in the context of education and guidance.
The FremKom collaboration contributes to a cross-sectoral co-operation for putting competence development on the agenda in the
North Denmark Region.
European/National/Regional Project / Effective engagement by government with stakeholders 87

Venue and Information
Submitted by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency
In the autumn of 2013, as a result of the increase of global crises and thus
EPSA2015074
predictions of increased global migration, the Migration Agency in Sweden
called for an assembly with actors involved in the processes of migration,
Social Insurance Agency labour market integration, social integration, and repatriation. A common
LM Ericssons väg 30 goal for the assembly was to find ways that would make the process of
103 51 Stockholm labour market integration easier and more convenient for people who have
Sweden gained asylum in Sweden.
Contact person Venue and Information is one of the six proposals that were developed
Louise Andersson at the assembly. During 2014, this proposal was turned into a project and
Project Manager a steering committee was set up, consisting of representatives from the
[email protected] Migration Agency, the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish
Social Insurance Agency, the Swedish Pensions Agency, the Swedish Tax
Size of organisation Agency, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.
>5000;
people directly involved: >15 The aim of the project is to develop a venue for personalised support and
information to newcomers based on service needs. This should help them
Type of sector integrate to the labour market more rapidly and achieve self-sufficiency
Public administration, modernisation, earlier. The goal is to develop a simplified process for newcomers and
institutional affairs, reform to reduce the costs for the agencies involved. The Swedish Social
Insurance Agency, the Swedish Pensions Agency and the Swedish Tax
Key words of the project Agency already work together at a venue called the Service Office, where
Venue, labour market integration, social they meet their clients together. Therefore, these Service offices provide
integration, information, interaction, a natural venue for the activities of the project and are to be used as
migration platforms for interdisciplinary teams with representatives from each of the
agencies involved in the project.
To build these interdisciplinary teams and reach out to the newcomers, it was necessary to create pilot projects on a local level.
Therefore, the project appointed four municipalities to serve as pilot projects. The requirements for the pilot projects were; the
presence of a Service Office in the municipality, a great interest by the municipality in newcomers’ integration and establishment,
and that both the Swedish Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency where located in the municipality or in the vicinity
of the municipality. To ensure variety, the project also wanted differently sized municipalities, with a wide geographical distribution.
Thus the municipalities of Alingsås, Borlänge, Ljusdal and Norrköping were selected as pilot projects. These pilot projects have
since their appointment been responsible for identifying elements in the process of newcomers’ establishment, by which changes
in work methods and cooperation offer opportunities for efficiency and improvement.
Today, eight months into the project, newcomers affected by the project only have to visit the Service Office once, for a few hours,
to be notified of their decision from the Migration Agency, to apply for civil registration at the Swedish Tax Agency, to get enroled for
labour market integration at the Swedish Public Employment Service, and to apply for financial aid from or enrol their children for
day-care with the municipality. During the remainder of their process of establishment, they can meet all of these agencies in one
place at the same time, sometimes even in trialogue meetings, and with a specially formed checklist to help both the newcomers
and the case officers to complete the process more easily. The initial part of the process of establishment is now more efficient and
the interdisciplinary teams work together to make it even more efficient.
88 European/National/Regional Project / Effective engagement by government with stakeholders

Green Deal Approach in the Netherlands
Submitted by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs
The Netherlands has opted for green growth: economic growth that takes
EPSA2015070
into account environment and sustainable development. Through its Green
Deal approach, the Dutch Government has created space for innovative
Ministry of Economic Affairs initiatives from society aimed at accelerating the transition to a sustainable
Bezuidenhoutseweg 73 economy.
The Hague
The Netherlands In implementing sustainable initiatives, businesses, NGOs and citizens’
www.greendeals.nl groups sometimes face obstacles. The aim of the Green Deal approach
is to remove those barriers. The role of government can vary according
Contact person to the initiative: from removing obstacles in legislation and regulations
Janneke Timmerman and providing access to networks, through to supporting access to the
Programme Manager Green Deals capital market. The Green Deal approach is a joint initiative by the Dutch
[email protected] Ministries of Economic Affairs (EZ), Infrastructure and the Environment
(I&M), and the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK).
>5000; Central government facilitates innovative initiatives from society. The main
people directly involved: >15 objective of the Green Deal approach is that stakeholders put as many
opportunities leading to a green economy as possible into practice, in the
Type of sector form of activities that both contribute to economic growth and improve
Economic affairs, competition, SME; the environment. On average, Green Deals run for a period of two to
Environment, climate change, agriculture three years. The central themes of the Green Deals are energy, food,
(incl. food safety) and fishery; Public water, resources, biodiversity, mobility, bio-based economy, climate and
administration, modernisation, institutional construction. Ideally, these Green Deals will also inspire others and open
affairs, reform; Science, research, innovation up opportunities for future sustainable initiatives. In this way, the deals
bring about follow-up and more impact.
Green growth, innovation, better regulation, The Green Deal approach is one element in a standard range of policy
networking instruments. It is used to supplement existing instruments, such as
legislation and regulation, market and financial incentives, and measures
to stimulate innovation. The Green Deal approach is particularly suitable
when innovations are actually put into practice, a phase during which projects often encounter barriers. Green Deals bring Central
Government closer to companies, stakeholder organisations and interest groups. They give government a more readily identifiable
presence and the other players a clear point of contact.
A Green Deal is an agreement between a (coalition of) enterprises, civil society organisations or public administrations. It defines
the innovative initiative and the actions involved as concretely as possible (if possible in quantitative aims or output) and it defines
the input by the public administrations as concretely as possible. Green Deals have an average timeframe of three years. In the
period between 2011 and 2014, 176 Green Deals were closed in the Netherlands, involving a total of 1,090 participants.
A number of unique selling points (i.e. innovative features) distinguish the Green Deal approach from comparable approaches
in the Netherlands. These are for instance: a broad programmatic framework, interdepartmental cooperation by the participating
ministries and all players, including the government, carry out activities in the Green Deal. To date, the results achieved with
Green Deals include: realisation of 15,000 electric vehicle charging stations; making 8,100 homes energy-efficient; more than
2000 hectares of temporary nature in almost thirty areas; and construction of seven LNG stations and two LNG bunker stations.
Furthermore a number of legislative barriers has been removed, thereby improving the conditions for green growth.
The Green Deal approach is applicable to other policy areas. Investigations are currently under way in the Netherlands to see
whether the approach could also be transferred to the ‘care and cure’ domain to help health innovations reach the market.

Climate-Proof Water Management:
Social Dialogue and Regional Participation
Submitted by the Hollands Noorderkwartier District Water Control Board (HHNK)
This project is about taking up the social challenge of climate change for
EPSA2015119
regional participation and organisational renewal. The North Holland District
Water Control Board (HHNK) is responsible for water management in the
Hollands Noorderkwartier Hollands Noorderkwartier, an area in the Dutch province of Noord-Holland.
District Water Control Board (HHNK) In 2011, their plans to install additional water storage met with fierce
Bevelandseweg 1 opposition from residents, farmers and businesses. Yet despite obvious
1703 AZ Heerhugowaard advantages, heated social discussion ensued, which was to be expected
The Netherlands in the absence of any regional climate dialogue. Large-scale dialogue was
www.hhnk.nl needed here and so were dramatic changes to their organisational culture.
Contact person HHNK took this as an opportunity to accelerate culture change and internal
F. Oosting transition. Secretary Director Martin Kuipers looks back on the decision to
Strategist engage in social dialogue as a particular tense period, noting: “A surge in
[email protected] mergers and the associated ‘engineering culture’ did nothing to improve
the openness of our culture’. Yet we were eager to collaborate with
Size of organisation stakeholders to develop a future plan for climate-proof water management.
500-5000;
people directly involved: >15 Well over 300 stakeholder representatives participated in our climate
dialogue. Dialogue represents the promise of social involvement. If you
Type of sector fail to incorporate this into your everyday dealings, you will earn yourself
Environment, climate change, agriculture a reputation of being unreliable and untrustworthy”. With the social
(incl. food safety) and fishery; Public dialogue in full swing, the Board turned their attention to matters of internal
administration, modernisation, institutional management and control. Public organisations sometimes still tend to think
affairs, reform that structural change automatically leads to a different way of working.
But an effective change to organisational structure will not simply take
Key words of the project effect on the first of the month - both managers and employees need to
Water management, dialogue, innovation, change their attitude and behaviour.
climate change
Once the Board had drafted the blueprints for the new organisational
structure, they invited department managers and employees to join forces
in working out the new structure in detail. Managers and employees also had the opportunity to test new responsibilities and
working processes. In tandem with this effort, they organised an internal dialogue to explain why changes were required. Working
forms ranged from work conferences to reflection weeks and organisational storytelling.
At the time, the social dialogue was entering its final phase. The future plan (the so-called Delta Vision) was now completed.
All stakeholders were keen to continue their participation, so another large-scale open plan process was organised to develop
a water management plan for the 2016-2021 period. One thousand ideas for concrete measures were submitted, effectively
forming the basis of the future plan, which was completed late in 2014 and implementation of which is to commence in 2016.
Meanwhile, quantitative research indicates that today citizens view them as more open and progressive. HHNK even ended first
when compared to a benchmark with other Dutch governmental organisations. This overwhelming vote of confidence can also
be attributed to the dramatic modernisation of their work methods. Confidence has also risen as a result of their investment in
mediation and improving the environment and customer orientation of employees in the field. Looking back, this effort represents
nothing less than a complete metamorphosis for all external and internal stakeholders. The entire process took 36 months.
The aim is not about setting a record-breaking timeframe. What truly matters, is gaining the insight that public organisations can
effectively capitalise on major social challenges to facilitate their own organisational renewal.

Room for the River
Submitted by Rijkswaterstaat, the Directorate-General for Public Works and
Water Management
EU Funded
Rijkswaterstaat develops and manages the national infrastructure networks

EPSA2015101
on behalf of the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and the Environment.
Their task is to ensure that the Dutch are protected from floods, have
Rijkswaterstaat sufficient clean water and a smooth and safe flow of transport on the
Griffioenlaan 2 nation’s roads and waterways. Rijkswaterstaat is responsible for the
3526 LA Utrecht construction, management and maintenance of the main infrastructure of
The Netherlands the Netherlands. That infrastructure comprises three main networks:
www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl/english 1. The main road network consists of over 3000 km highway, including 754
www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/en bridges and 24 tunnels.
2. The 7000 km long main waterway is the busiest economical waterway
Contact persons network in the world, and has over 300 bridges and 92 locks.
Sjaak van der Werf 3. The main water system covers over 90,000 km2, a 450 km long coastline
Senior Adviser and over 250 km of levees and dams. In total, public authorities control
[email protected] 17,500 km of levees, mainly managed by so called regional water
Mariska van der Deen authorities.
Consultant
[email protected] Rijkswaterstaat currently have approximately 8800 employees across the
Netherlands and a yearly budget of approximately €5 billion.
>5000; The Netherlands are well known as the world’s best protected delta. Unique
people directly involved: >15 in its kind, since without their water barriers such as dikes, dams and dunes,
two third of the country would be flooded (60% of the inhabitants live beneath
Type of sector sea level). Due to climate change, the Netherlands will have to cope with
Environment, climate change, agriculture more storms and heavier rainfall. The water levels will fluctuate more.
(incl. food safety) and fishery; Regional
policy and development, decentralisation; Reinforcing the dikes does not bring a long-term solution. Extremely high
Science, research, innovation; Transport water levels in the Dutch river basins and near-floods in 1993 and 1995
and infrastructure were serious warnings. In 1995, a quarter of a million people and a million
head of livestock had to be evacuated. Heavier rainfall and larger volumes
Key words of the project of meltwater mean their rivers have to discharge more water.
Water safety, water management, climate
change, flood protection, resilience, Delta, These extreme situations led to a major change in thinking on flood
from stakeholders to shareholders, new safety in the Netherlands. The risks they face cannot be mitigated only by
public leadership, open government, raising the dikes. Water levels must be reduced by giving their rivers more
citizenship, collaboration, process innovation, room. By implementing the Room for the River programme, together with
multi-level governance regional water authorities, municipalities and provinces, Rijkswaterstaat is
increasing the discharge capacity of the Rhine (and its tributaries) from
15 to 16 million litres of water per second.
The highest priority has been given to the safety of the four million people living in the river basin. Next to the measures taken to
achieve required safety levels, spatial quality is also enhanced. Nature and economy will benefit from the projects and there will be
more opportunities for recreation. Solutions that retain as much farmland as possible are preferred. Room for the River is among
the first national government programmes involving co-management between the ministries of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure
& Environment. Rijkswaterstaat is working on this programme in co-creation and collaboration with national government, regional
water authorities, municipalities, provinces, NGOs and civilians. Various (governmental) agreements in cooperation ensure realisation
within time and budget. Most of their projects will be completed in 2015. They are sharing their ‘Dutch approach’ on an international
scale. Through participation in EU INTERREG exchange programmes ‘Flood Resilient cities’ (FRC) and Adaptive Land Use for Flood
Alleviation’ (ALFA), they exchanged knowledge on an European scale on flood protection in urban and rural areas. Their flood protection
expertise of innovative technologies, multilevel governance and building with nature is attracting widespread international interest.

River Bed Vegetation Map
Submitted by Rijkswaterstaat, the Directorate-General for Public Works and
Water Management
Large areas of the Netherlands are prone to flooding from the rivers
EPSA2015219
Rhine and Meuse. One of the responsibilities of the Dutch department
for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) is to enable
Rijkswaterstaat a safe discharge of floods by keeping the river bed as smooth and
P.O. Box 2232 obstacle-free as possible. A potential risk to flood safety is the unchecked
3500 GE Utrecht development of vegetation in the flood plains of the river. To manage this
The Netherlands risk Rijkswaterstaat has recently (2014) set a standard in the form of a river
www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/en bed vegetation map (in Dutch: Vegetatielegger). This map indicates what
type of vegetation is allowed to grow on which location in the river bed from
Contact person a flood risk point of view. All vegetation is categorised into four classes,
Max Schropp each with a distinct resistance to flow. Although Rijkswaterstaat is the river
Adviser Flood Risk Management manager, most flood plains are privately owned by some 13,000 unique
[email protected] individuals and businesses. Imposing restrictions on the development of
vegetation, thus limiting the use of these lands for economical or ecological
Size of organisation purposes, affects their interests. The river bed vegetation map is a new
>5000; legal instrument. Therefore it is subject to appeal by stakeholders.
people directly involved: 6-10
From the start of the project, nature management organisations were
Type of sector actively involved in the development of the river bed vegetation map. In close
Environment, climate change, agriculture cooperation with these large professional stakeholders, the specifications
(incl. food safety) and fishery; Transport of the map were drawn up. Moreover Rijkswaterstaat realised that the
and infrastructure many private landowners and tenants also had to be included at an early
stage in the process. The challenge was to find an efficient, informal and
Key words of the project interactive way to gain insight in their interests and concerns. Additional
Flood safety, floodplain management, goals were to benefit from their knowledge to improve the map, to increase
online consultation understanding and support for the map and its purpose, and to expedite
the formal participation process in a later stage of the project.
The solution was to engage the private landowners and tenants in an online and offline consultation strategy. All 13,000 received a
letter in which they were informed about the introduction of the river bed vegetation map and its purpose. They were invited to an
interactive website that published a draft version of the vegetation map. By entering their address in a search field, they could zoom
to their own property. They were also asked to check whether their property had been correctly mapped and respond by dragging
and dropping an arrow with their comments. Statistics of their online behaviour show that 9% of the stakeholders submitted one or
more proposals for correction, 60% visited the website but did not take any further action, and 31% did not respond at all. These
figures constitute an extremely high response rate.
The online consultation strategy resulted in a better informed public, a considerable improvement of the river bed vegetation map
and an increased support for its purpose. Of the 1,200 participants who submitted a reaction on the website, only 40 formally
opposed at a later stage to the river bed vegetation map. The Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment approved the river
bed vegetation map in October 2014. It now constitutes the basis on which Rijkswaterstaat performs its vegetation management
of the flood plains.

Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N)
Submitted by the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N)
EU Funded
The Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) is an

EPSA2015173
interagency and international maritime operational platform, funded as an
EU project and formed in 2007. Seven EU partner countries participate in
Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre the project (France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the
- Narcotics (MAOC-N) United Kingdom with support from the United States). It seeks to counter
Avenida Infante Dom Henrique, 16-18 the threat of bulk trafficking of drugs across the Atlantic and Western
Ao Poço do Bispo Mediterranean by maritime and air conveyances. MAOC-N is based in
1950-409, Lisboa Lisbon and the staff work together to fuse actionable intelligence which
Portugal they feed to their home agencies for corroboration, enhancement or de-
www.maoc.eu confliction. This combination of competence and trust has ultimately led
to significant maritime interceptions and seisures by competent authorities
Contact person in partner states of bulk loads of cocaine and cannabis, denying drug
Joan Wilson traffickers their illicit cargo and criminal assets in excess of €8 billion.
Country Liaison Officer
[email protected] Since 2007 MAOC-N has supported 133 interdictions yielding seisures in
excess of 100 tons of cocaine and 300 tons of cannabis, with over 600
Size of organisation arrests from 55 nationalities. Over 90% of the vessels of interest shared
1-25; included intelligence where other countries were able to enhance the
people directly involved: >15 overall understanding and provide a more holistic response to a successful
outcome. In most cases the country making the intervention is not the
Type of sector country that supplied the initial information.
Education (higher and lower), training
and learning; External relations and aid, Police, Customs and Naval personnel from partner countries are physically
development and enlargement; Justice, co-located, working together with the Centre staff in a common commitment,
police, human rights and security sharing their expertise and resources across the Atlantic, stretching from
South America to Europe and into the Western Mediterranean. This
Key words of the project pooling of resources and expertise has arguably been the most effective
Maritime security, drug interdictions, law enforcement measure focused on illicit drug trafficking activity in the
capacity building Atlantic Ocean created to date. The Centre provides a dynamic operational
task force and offers tangible evidence about why we are stronger and
more effective working together.
A further strand of invaluable work undertaken by MAOC-N is in capacity building in West Africa, a known nexus for drug trafficking
from South America to Europe. Efforts to enhance the capability of countries along the ‘cocaine route’ rely on strong partnership and
relationships built on trust and respect. MAOC-N has been involved in many exercises and training initiatives which have received
important acknowledgment from the local and national authorities. This further enhances their maritime awareness, and security,
and represents a significant investment in building safer communities in West Africa and across Europe.
These activities showcase MAOC-N as a centre of excellence, promoting efficient networking, practice exchange and knowledge
transfer across Europe and West Africa. Not only do the authorities that are represented in the Centre contribute to operations, they
also gainfully learn from best practice in partner countries. MAOC-N maintains a modest operating budget by making better use of
existing systems and by seeking synergies and building networks with other European agencies who provide services which can
be exploited. This includes intelligence exchange with Europol, tracking vessels through the European Maritime Safety Agency,
satellite imagery from the European Space Agency, information or resources, from Frontex, or exploring possibilities with European
Fisheries Control Agency or relevant organisations.
MAOC-N promotes an inclusive and collaborative environment which endeavours to get the very best from what each country has
to offer. They seek to counter a common threat with common sense.

BQ-Portal – The Information Portal for Foreign Professional
Qualifications
Submitted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Nominee
Germany is faced with demographic challenges: its potential workforce is

EPSA2015047
dwindling and many sectors are already having to cope with a shortage of
skilled labour. This is why international qualified professionals are playing
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs an increasingly important role in the German economy. But so far they have
and Energy been prevented from realising their full potential because there has not
Scharnhorststr. 34-37 been access to reliable information on foreign professional qualifications.
10115 Berlin The BQ-Portal was designed to change this.
Germany
www.bmwi.de Its main purpose is to support the “competent organisations” in charge of
assessing and recognising foreign professional qualifications in Germany,
Contact persons which notably include the Chambers of Skilled Crafts, the Chambers of Industry
Martina Kollberg and Commerce, and chambers for the various liberal professions in Germany.
Case Officer
[email protected] The online platform provides them with detailed and scientifically verified
Daniel Wörndl information regarding foreign vocational training systems, the substance
BQ-Portal Team Leader and duration of individual vocational training programmes and the legal
[email protected] basis on which these are offered. This information is compiled and then
organised and published online in a way that makes it useful for the
Size of organisation competent organisations.
500-5000;
people directly involved: 1-5 This approach makes the BQ-Portal something entirely unique: it is the
first online work and knowledge sharing platform to pool all of the relevant
Type of sector information on foreign professional qualifications.
Employment, labour-related affairs and
gender equality The way in which the information is gathered and organised now follows a
collaborative approach: besides educational researchers, the staff of the
Key words of the project competent organisations, i.e. the practitioners actually using the database,
Recognition, qualified professionals, foreign are also involved. The information added by them notably includes details
professional qualifications, vocational about specific occupations and the outcomes of the relevant equivalence
training, integration procedures. In addition to this, the portal also offers registered users
information on the legal situation, the procedures and methods used in
the assessment of foreign qualifications as well as guidelines and practical
examples.
The information portal is a “learning system” that helps to build up knowledge and information and thereby complements the
Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Professional Qualifications Act. Thanks to its knowledge and information management
capabilities, equivalence procedures in Germany have become significantly more effective and efficient. Moreover, the BQ-Portal
ensures that all of the competent organisations draw on the same database. This both fosters consistency between the decisions
made by the various chambers across the Federal Republic and renders the entire process more transparent.
For people who have obtained professional qualifications abroad, this means not only that they receive more likely a document
providing proof of their qualifications, but also that this information is much more detailed than it would otherwise have been. In
this way, the portal also benefits (potential) employers who can now gain a better understanding of what a particular set of foreign
professional qualifications actually entails. This renders candidates who have obtained their qualifications outside Germany more
attractive for employers in Germany and makes it more likely that they will be hired and find it easier to integrate into the German
society. At the same time, the BQ-Portal also helps to reduce the skills shortage in Germany.
By setting up the BQ-Portal, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has followed a new approach to delivering
administrative services. The portal supports the competent organisations in their complex task of assessing foreign qualifications.
It thereby strengthens the bodies that ensure self-regulation by industry.
94 European/National/Regional Project / New service delivery approaches

ALF (Child Benefit without Application)
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF)
Nominee
Based on a decision of the Austrian Federal Government the project ALF

EPSA2015167
started in December 2014. The project ALF is the first step of the program
FABIAN (Family allowances new), which is defined to improve the whole
Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) service delivery process for the topic family allowance. It is planned to redesign
Johannesgasse 5 and implement it on a new SAO based web architecture in the next years.
1010 Vienna
Austria The core functionality of ALF is the elimination of the necessity to make
https://english.bmf.gv.at an application for getting child benefit after childbirth, in other words the
implementation of a No-Stop-Shop solution. If all necessary information is
Contact person available to the fiscal authorities, although distributed over different public
Wolfgang Katzmann, MSc authorities and different data sources, the person eligible for child benefit
Head of Department International Matters, will get payment quick and uncomplicated.
Family Benefit, Real Estate
[email protected] Original state (before ALF)
a. Citizen’s view – to receive regular payment of the child benefit after birth
Size of organisation an application has to be done by: personal handover at the fiscal
500-5000; authority; postal application; online application.
people directly involved: >15 b. Case officer’s view – an application processing needs at least: manual
data collection; manual application assessment.
Type of sector
Public health and social welfare/affairs; Target state (with ALF)
Public administration, modernisation, a. Citizen’s regular payment of the child benefit starting after birth: need
institutional affairs, reform; Sports, youth, no application; is uncomplicated; done as soon as possible.
culture and art; Taxation, customs, finances b. Case officer’s view – ALF automates: data collection; application review
and scoring.
No-Stop-Shop, child benefit, birth, Project content
eGovernment, administrative reform Implementation of the “No-Stop-Shop” solution for automated granting and
regular payment of child benefit on occasion of birth. The ALF process is
triggered by an electronically data transfer of personal data in case of a live
birth. The register of births, deaths and marriages sends the information to the master data administration of the BMF. These data
are completed by data from other external databases, e.g.: Income/salary information and National insurance data. Performing a
set of business rules the entitlement is checked and the claimant is determined (mother, father, solicitor...).
If banking information (IBAN, BIC) is available the child benefit will be paid quick and uncomplicated. If additional data are necessary
they will be gathered by mail through an automatically created information letter. There are approximately 80,000 births per year; this
means 39,000 hours savings for the citizens per year and there will be also a nameable amount of savings for the financial authority.
Project goals
a. Improved client-centred service delivery: consistent further development of the One-Stop-Shop principle into the No-Stop-Shop
solution; citizens save time and cost, because there is no need to apply; supporting documents are not applicable; the child
benefit will be paid quick and uncomplicated.
b. Increased cost efficiency in public administration: reduced personal contact; cost savings for data collection from different data
sources; cost savings for application review and scoring.
c. Smooth transition from today’s IT landscape to a new solution: ALF is the first step of the program FABIAN, which improves all
aspects of family allowance service delivery processes for citizens as well as for the public administration.
Complementary facts
80.000 births; 20% use IT application FinanceOnline for Citizens for application; 1228 register offices; 41 finance offices (80 locations);
1.15 million entitled persons; 1.7 million children; €4.2 billion annual budget for child tax allowance and child benefit.
European/National/Regional Project / New service delivery approaches 95

NetRegs
Submitted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Regulatory guidance for businesses can be complex and inconsistent,

EPSA2015131
resulting in an unnecessary administrative burden and a lack of clarity
about key messages.
Environment Protection Agency
Burnbrae, Mossilee Road, Galashiels NetRegs was set up to be a web-based first port of call for smaller businesses
United Kingdom to find out how to comply with environmental law and follow best practice,
www.netregs.org.uk all in an anonymous way and for free. The project was initiated in 2002 as
www.sepa.org.uk a partnership between the three UK environmental regulators. Later, the
Transformational Government agenda and DEFRA policy meant that the
Contact person Environment Agency (for England and Wales) had to withdraw from the
Gillian Bruce partnership. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency now delivers the
Unit Manager, Advice and Engagement service in partnership with Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).
[email protected] The content is targeted at Northern Irish and Scottish businesses, though
best practice is valid beyond those borders. In transferring the website to
Size of organisation SEPA, the team wanted to retain the NetRegs brand, increase the number
500-5000; of users, and develop beyond website pages to ensure that the service met
people directly involved: 6-10 the needs of businesses in a variety of ways.
Type of sector To help achieve this, the team sought external advice, by setting up a
Environment, climate change, agriculture Business Advisory Group comprising key business and trade associations
(incl. food safety) and fishery as well as some individual businesses. The team also established an
Internal Advisory Group with members of different specialisms from
Key words of the project across SEPA. Wider engagement with the public is undertaken via regular
NetRegs, environment, web guidance, surveys. Since NetRegs’s inception, the team have re-structured the site
SMEs and developed a number of different tools, so that now businesses have
a range of options available, depending on their needs. There is sector-
specific guidance, a library of environmental topics, sections on key
environmental legislation, links to other useful sources of information and a suite of interactive eLearning tools that deal with
common environmental issues faced by businesses. Also, an online compliance self–assessment tool that, through an interactive
questionnaire and automatically generated feedback report, allows businesses to check, anonymously, if they are compliant in
a number of key areas of environmental regulation. This tool links to further information if the businesses are not in compliance.
15 videos show practical examples of actions taken by businesses to achieve a high standard of environmental performance.
A free monthly email newsletter is available for all subscribers. A mobile app, providing simple compliance checklists to businesses,
is currently in development. This will allow users to access simplified, practical information on mobile devices. The app is aimed at
sectors where staff are unlikely to have access to a computer for a large part of their working days.
It has been recognised, through survey data, that NetRegs services can save businesses money (in terms of expenses in obtaining
environmental compliance advice, resource efficiencies and reputational gains), thus contributing to promoting economic growth in
various business sectors. The services also reduce the burden on the Scottish and Northern Irish environment agencies’ frontline staff.
If customers locate the guidance they require online, through NetRegs, they may not need to contact the agencies directly. This will
reduce resource costs within the agencies.

Domain-Transcending Standardisation with Standard
Business Reporting (SBR)
Submitted by Logius, the Digital Government Service of the Dutch Ministry of the
Interior and Kingdom Relations
EU Funded
Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is a widely supported solution for

EPSA2015148
the Dutch (business) society. Standard Business Reporting provides
governments and businesses with an unequivocal, cost-effective, secure
Logius and adaptable method for the exchange of business information between
Wilhelmina van Pruisenweg 52 organisations in a reporting chain.
2595 AN The Hague
The Netherlands Before the introduction of SBR, companies were asked by various government
www.sbr-nl.nl/english agencies to deliver the same information in multiple ways. For the same data
definitions, different data sets were used. Thanks to the introduction of SBR
Contact persons similar data sets are being used for similar data definitions, so companies
Lucas Swennen can deliver the requested information with the proverbial click of the mouse.
Sr. Strategic Adviser This leaves them with more time to focus on their business.
[email protected]
Bas Groenveld With Standard Business Reporting (SBR), the Dutch Government and
Adviser SBR International the businesses in the Netherlands have come to an agreement regarding
[email protected] the way accountability information is being reported. This leads to an
undisputed set of financial information.
100-500; Standardisation
people directly involved: >15 Standardisation within SBR has proved its long-term added value to the
participating organisations. Due to the underlying agreements SBR can
Type of sector count on broad support and acceptance among participating organisations
Economic affairs, competition, SME; and all these parties comply with them strictly. Standardisation (of
Information society, technology, media data, processes and technologies) offers all participating organisations
and audio-visual; Public administration, advantages in effectiveness and efficiency.
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform;
Taxation, customs, finances Transparency
With a system that is based on the standardisation of data, processes
Key words of the project and technologies, it delivers a huge contribution to the unambiguous
Administrative burden reduction, digital interpretation of financial facts and figures. Tax figures, annual reports or
single market, openness and interoperability, major statistics are all based on the same definitions. This enlarges the
standards, digital reporting, compliance, financial transparency considerably.
transparency, benchmarking, reliable data,
public-private governance Public-Private Governance
The Dutch government has set the ambition that in 2017 citizens and
companies are able to handle all their affairs with the government digitally.
In the elaboration of this intention, it soon became clear that businesses
are an essential link in the joint realisation of this ambition. Within SBR, public and private parties are working closely together,
based on an efficient governance structure, to make the eSociety possible in the Dutch business world. By focusing on the entire
chain instead of looking just at their own responsibilities, SBR is a success because of the shared responsibility.
Benchmarking possibilities
The legal requirements for companies to provide information to the government were often seen as a burden. After all, the companies
received little or no information in return. Thanks to SBR it is not only possible for the Dutch government to return aggregated
information; trade associations, for example, can supply their members with relevant information. Thanks to the exchange of
information using SBR, benchmarking is made possible. This makes it even more attractive for companies to use SBR, knowing
that they can compare their own results to their competitors. Thanks to the digitalisation of the information exchange, companies
get information faster and more reliable information than before. As a result they can respond quicker to observed changes.

The Citizen Portal
EU Funded
The Citizen Portal (Portal do Cidadão) is the central channel to access and
EPSA2015234
deliver electronic public services in Portugal, facilitating the relationship
between citizens, business and Public Administration. The portal can be
Agency for Administrative Modernisation defined as the single point of contact for online services provided by public
Rua Abranches Ferrão No. 10 authorities, both central and local government, also presenting services by
3º, 1600-001 Lisbon private entities.
Portugal
www.ama.pt The Portal was developed by the Portuguese Agency for Administrative
Modernisation (AMA), in close relation with the Portuguese public entities
Contact person integrated in the Portal.
João Ricardo Vasconcelos
Head of Innovation and International Affairs The first national Citizen Portal had been launched in February 2004 and
[email protected] the Business Portal was created two years later, both needing functional
and technological updates. The new Portal was created aligned with
Size of organisation the best practices to better serve the Portuguese society, providing
100-500; information and electronic public services for citizens and businesses in
people directly involved: 11-15 a simpler, clearer and more accessible way. A new layout and refurbished
functionalities where provided, aggregating the previous Citizen Portal and
Type of sector Business Portal’s features and services in a single web point of contact.
Information society, technology, media
and audio-visual; Public administration, The new Citizen Portal is:
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform • Simpler – The new Portal allows users to search the services and
information they need with just a single keyword, thanks to a robust
Key words of the project search engine immediately available on the Portal’s homepage.
Innovation, simplification, interactivity, The search results point to services and information organised in an
modernisation, citizen portal, easy and simple way to be easily understandable, with practical guides
search engine, citizen services, that explain the steps to carry.
society services, electronic public services, • Faster – This service provides access to online public services for the
services portal, point of single contact search results point instantly to the services, in an intuitive way. It also
has direct links to the most wanted services, available on the homepage.
Simultaneously, the Citizen Portal is more accessible and is a
fundamental part of the national inclusive eGovernment approach, being conformant with the WCAG 2.0 AA level and adapted
to different kind of mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, etc.) allowing citizens to access the services with no time and
geographical barriers. It also makes suggestions of search expressions, applies synonyms to search words introduced by the
user, and incorporates authentication with the Portuguese Digital Mobile Key (Chave Móvel Digital) that allows users to log in to the
portal with a secure and easy password at any time or place.
• More intuitive – The new Citizen Portal organises information and services based on themes and life events, and automatically
updates and displays in the homepage the list of most wanted services. Any citizen can have access to information and public
services in Portuguese, English and Spanish.
• More participative – The portal allows users to publically rate, comment and share their suggestions and evaluations about
the services and information provided. This can be shared on social networks like Twitter or Facebook. Furthermore, an option
for suggestions, compliments or complaints is available in the footnote of the portal.
Currently, this functionality offers more than 1500 online services provided by 578 public and private bodies and entities,
such as: online request for certificates; change of address service; ‘My Street’ for reporting damages in public spaces; or Online
Business creation service, among other.
The new Citizen Portal was launched on 12 March 2015 and, pursuing the European Digital Strategy, it intends to significantly
contribute to build a better society, providing an effective and simple interface between the Public Administration and the society.

The Citizen’s Guide of the Region of Epirus
Submitted by the Region of Epirus
The Citizen’s Guide of the Region of Epirus is a structured mapping of

EPSA2015150
the administrative procedures, which have as a common characteristic the
provision of a service to citizens. The relevant website, www.politis.gov.gr,
Region of Epirus is based on Free/Open Source software.
Pirou Square 1
45221 Ioannina This Guide is the first part of a larger plan which aims at the administrative
Greece reform of the Region of Epirus. This could be extended to all Regions and
www.php.gov.gr to the rest of the public administration in Greece. It is based on the idea
that the operation of a public body can be analysed to a set of procedures.
Contact person The ultimate goal is to enable the citizens to be served through the use of
Tatiana Kalogianni the internet.
Deputy Governor of the Region of Epirus
[email protected] There are two types of administrative procedures: internal and front-end
Alexandros Gerontas ones, which deal with the citizens and their needs. The Citizen’s Guide
Project Manager focuses on the latter, including interaction with the region’s citizens, but its
[email protected] methodology could easily be extended to include and facilitate the internal
Nikolaos Ntemos ones as well.
Web Developer
[email protected] Firstly, a structured form has been developed to record information
(metadata) concerning each administrative procedure in order to create
Size of organisation the profile of every procedure. All of these procedure’s profiles have then
500-5000; been grouped by the Directorate General (DG) of the Region of Epirus
people directly involved: >15 and arranged according to thematic categories for better accessibility.
Apart from the provision of information and relevant documents for each
Type of sector administrative procedure, citizens can upload application forms concerning
Public administration, modernisation, each administrative procedure. Currently, the Citizen’s Guide of the Region
institutional affairs, reform of Epirus includes over 250 administrative procedures.
Key words of the project The Graphical User Interface (website) is user friendly. Citizens can
Administrative procedures, citizen, search for a variety of administrative procedures utilising the many tools
citizens’ guide that have been made available on the Guide. Another characteristic is
that the entire website has evaluation procedures incorporated into each
individual administrative procedure, as well as evaluation procedures for
the website itself. Additionally, the content of the Guide is available in recorded verbal format so as to enhance equal access to all
the information available.
The benefits for citizens are many as the aim of the Guide is to enhance the transparency of administrative procedures
ensuring that all the relevant information (metadata) becomes easily accessible to all citizens through the internet. Moreover,
civil servants will have to spend less time in providing such information and thus their productivity can be increased.
The projected increase in cooperation between the public services should also add to the improvement of administrative procedures.
Additionally, the collection of such metadata can then be utilised as the basis on which to develop the models of the administrative
procedures as well as to be used to reengineer them.
It is worth noting that the implementation team of the Citizen’s Guide was composed exclusively of civil servants and Free/Open Source
software was utilised. As a result, it was developed at minimal public cost which was for the purchase of a few commercial components
of Joomla Content Management System (CMS). The hosting is free, utilising “Syzefxis” (National Networking Infrastructure).
In the future, it is foreseen that the Citizen’s Guide can be used as a platform for promoting cooperation between all the Regions of
Greece as many of the administrative procedures are based on the same legislative framework.

Justice 3.0 / eJustice
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
For as long as several decades the Austrian justice system has been
EPSA2015058
a role model in Europe when it comes to using information technology
successfully. Whereas in the 1990s the aim was, in particular, rationalisation
Federal Ministry of Justice through use of IT and full equipment of the entire justice system staff with
Museumsstraße 7 IT, today the aim is to find the best possible IT support for all the different
1070 Vienna user groups up to all-electronic handling of cases in the light of current
Austria technical trends and possibilities for the purposes of an overall picture of
www.justiz.gv.at the justice system.
Contact person By means of the strategic initiative Justice 3.0 “Justiz 3.0”, the Federal
Dr Martin Schneider Ministry of Justice, which called in all groups of employees and professional
CIO bodies, deals with, among other things, the question of how IT workplaces
[email protected] of the justice system should be designed in future in order for the staff
to be able to provide the services for citizens and businesses offered by
Size of organisation the justice system in a way that is up to date and efficient in times of a
100-500; constantly increasing workload and growing challenges.
people directly involved: >15
Based on the requirements and needs of practitioners it is planned to
Type of sector subsequently identify the demand for modernisation and optimisation
Justice, police, human rights and security both with regard to the justice system’s business operations and current
IT support. On this basis the future IT application landscape of the justice
Key words of the project system can be designed for the purposes of eJustice, and the path from
Justice, IT, renewal, strategic initiative, the actual to the target situation can be outlined, taking into account
court automation relevant cost/benefit analyses. Potentials inherent in the use of modern
technologies will be included in the above considerations in the best
possible way.
The initiative Justiz 3.0 is intended to improve the quality of the services offered to the public and to increase satisfaction of the staff
so that the justice system can fulfil the requirements of an up-to-date and attractive (eJustice) workplace. The aim is to provide a
comprehensive and coherent system for all case types and user groups, considering their individual needs.
The overall report, concluding phase 1 of Justiz 3.0 by summarising key findings, strategic approaches and a consolidated vision
was published and communicated in June 2014. Based on this report and its implementation plan phase 2 of Justiz 3.0 is well
underway, right now with a number of parallel projects to establish the foundations and basic functions for digital file management,
among them organisation, application and infrastructure for incoming scan and OCR, file system and DMS as well as workflow
system.
According to the latest plans, a first pilot run of digital file management will be available by the beginning of 2016, on the basis of
which fine tuning with the various user groups can be done.

Public Geo Datasets at your Service (PDOK)
Submitted by the Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency
PDOK is an online portal providing access to all major public geographical

EPSA2015260
datasets in the Netherlands. Initiated by Kadaster in 2007, the scope of
this national spatial data infrastructure was unprecedented. The portal
Dutch Cadastre, is the result of the collaborative efforts of five Dutch governmental and
Land Registry and Mapping Agency public agencies. Currently in 2015, over 230 web services are available,
P.O. Box 9046, Apeldoorn amounting to 125 million hits per month. These services are free of charge,
The Netherlands easy to use, without user restrictions or exclusions, with high-quality and
www.pdok.nl reliable data, meeting national and international data standards.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=79mGJe08Fpk
Web services and downloadable files
Contact person PDOK is the abbreviation of Publieke Dienstverlening op De Kaart, Maps
Christelle van den Berg for Services. The geo datasets in PDOK are supplied by governmental
Adviser Public Affairs departments and public authorities. The data are therefore guaranteed to
[email protected] be up-to-date, reliable and for free. The data are available through web
services and downloadable files. For example, the Amsterdam municipality
Size of organisation uses PDOK datasets to make a map that predicts damage caused by
500-5000; floods in the Amsterdam canals.
people directly involved: 15
Users
Type of sector PDOK is open for anyone in need of geographical data, both in the public
Cadastre, registry and mapping of property and private sector. Including – for instance – municipalities, public agencies,
and land information businesses, schools and private citizens. In this way, the Dutch Government is
stimulating innovation, eGovernmental services and the use of geo information.
Geographic information, web services, reuse History
public sector data, free data, open data, In 2007, the European data directive INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial
reliable data, authentic data, non-commercial Information in Europe) was introduced. National legislation in the Netherlands
data, compliant data, real-time data, high had to be revised in order to meet the new international standards for the
availability, INSPIRE, Single Market, benefit of environmental policies. The Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and
eGovernmental services, education Mapping Agency (Kadaster) took the initiative and brought all relevant
stakeholders together. After elaborate debate, an agreement was reached
towards innovation and PDOK was born.
Meeting standards
PDOK meets both national and international standards, including the European INSPIRE standards and the Dutch eGovernment
standards as well as the Dutch Environmental Planning Act. Furthermore, it supports European Commission activities such as the
Single Market, Digital Agenda and the Public Sector Information Directive.
Partners
PDOK is a collaboration of various Dutch governmental and public agencies: The Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping
Agency (Kadaster); Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment; Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs; Rijkswaterstaat (Dutch
Road and Water Ways Networks); and Geonovum, a governmental department that is responsible for making geo information
accessible in the Netherlands.
Special features
Geo data can be updated daily, updates are fully automatic; high-performance services and files are platform independent, IT is based
upon open standard technology; easy to use even by those with limited knowledge of geospatial technologies; the ability to layer data
and aerial photos to create tailor-made maps; accurate, reliable and current (up-to-date) data; easy to use upload station combined
with automated data management and users can easily unlock and update data automatically; inclusion of the latest developments in
geospatial technologies such as 3D datasets; a helpdesk for questions, requests and complaints.

Administrative Reform in Hungary:
One-Stop-Shop Government Windows as the Initiation of
Equal Access to Public Services
Submitted by the Prime Minister’s Office
EU Funded
Hungary launched a structural reform programme focusing on the renewal

EPSA2015264
of territorial public administration in 2011. A key objective of the reform was
to build a system of client-focused public administration which resulted in the
Prime Minister’s Office establishment of governmental integrated one-stop-shop customer service
Kossuth Lajos tér 1-3 centres called Government Windows (Kormányablak).
1055 Budapest
Hungary The rationale behind the Government Windows network was to increase
www.kormanyablak.hu the efficiency of service provision by means of achieving economies of
scale to ensure that service standards are uniform across service areas
Contact person and geographical regions and to improve the client/customer oriented
Timea Baltay character of administrative services.
Vice Minister of State
[email protected] Another proclaimed goal of setting up Government Windows was to
ensure that public service delivery points – there are currently more than
Size of organisation 2000 nation-wide – shall be found within a short distance from the client’s
500-5000; home and work. Government Windows have the same outward image
people directly involved: >15 (concerning furniture, clothes etc.) and run operations. Clients may submit
several types of applications at the same time and place, which previously
Type of sector should have been submitted to different authorities.
institutional affairs, reform The first 29 Government Windows were opened on 3 January 2011 in
county towns, county-level towns, in Budapest and Pest County. At the
Key words of the project beginning 30 different types of public administrative procedures (cases)
Government windows, government were available. An important aim was to offer business- and customer-
integrated customer service offices friendly services. Government Windows thereby provide access to the
central eGovernment platform (called “Client Gate”), and help clients to fill
in electronic forms. Civil servants working in Government Windows also
inform and advise clients on the process of administrative procedures as well as deal with and forward clients’ requests and the
attached documents.
The so-called second generation Government Windows were first introduced on 1 October 2013. These service centres are capable
of issuing certain State documents, something that was previously done, solely, in Document Offices. One-stop-shop administration
is implemented through the integration of former Document Offices with other authorities. The number of Government Windows
has been increasing ever since. In September 2015 Hungary had more than 140 Government Windows. The overall project aims at
establishing altogether, about 300 Government Windows on county and lower district level by the end of 2015.
Government Windows can process currently altogether, 423 different types of cases and there are complementary services
available in further 10 areas. This portfolio is being constantly increased to a planned 2000+ delegated tasks which will embrace
the whole public sector, including immigration, industry, agriculture, employment and welfare benefits, environmental protection,
customer protection etc.
One-stop-shop services should also be accessible not only in government offices, but “brought to the door”– especially for the
disabled, the infirm and the elderly, by “township agents”, who are civil servants empowered to offer a certain set of public services
on the spot. The planned mobile offices (Mobile Government Windows) will make public administration available and accessible for
a wider proportion of the population all over the country.
The Prime Minister’s Office is responsible for the management and implementation, coordination and supervision of the Government
Windows network as well as for the respective legal framework. In summary, the ultimate objective of modernising territorial public
administration is to have satisfied citizens and clients by implementing genuine one-stop-shop administration.

Citizen Spot
EU Funded
The Citizen Spot is a single service desk with a specialised attendant

EPSA2015163
capable of delivering to any citizen a large number of services related
to both the public administration and the private sector. The delivered
Agency for Administrative Modernisation services are essentially those already available on various websites but
Rua Abranches Ferrão No.10 that citizens may not feel capable or comfortable with using directly, and
3º G, Lisbon, Portugal alone. The Citizen Spot is therefore a shared service among the entities that
www.ama.pt provide online services and its specialised attendant acts as a “citizenship
mediator” between the citizen and the required online service, providing
Contact person assistance as to what actually exists and how it is to be used.
Daniel Martins
Director Department of Public Service Delivery This new service combines assisted online digital services with onsite and
[email protected] involves the participation of a wide range of partner organisations in the
creation and management of the new service network. In addition, this
Size of organisation model is a very strong instrument in reducing the natural barriers between
100-500; info-excluded citizens and the large and ever expanding catalogue of
people directly involved: > 15 available online services.
Type of sector The project started in 2014, and is expected to reach its intended target of
Information society, technology, media 1000 Citizens Spots in 2016. These will cover the entire country, increasing
and audio-visual; Public administration, by a large factor the geographical density of the current service delivery
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform network at a reasonable cost, also enabling this expansion even in sparsely
populated areas.
eGovernment, modernisation, network This project adheres to the following main principles:
governance, simplification, territorial cohesion • Efficiency – The Citizen Spot Network is based on partnerships with
various entities (public and private). These partners provide and manage
the necessary facilities and human resources, while AMA and Central
Administration services provide only support and back-office functions.
• Quality – Building on the experience AMA has gained since 1997 with the implementation and management of 1st and
2nd generation “One-Stop-Shops”, this new public service model is expected to bring increasing levels of satisfaction to its users.
• Proximity to public services and territorial cohesion - The transformation and expansion of the Citizen Spots Network will
cover all 278 municipalities in mainland Portugal. The number of posts to be installed will vary depending on the population of
each municipality. This project will ensure accessibility and proximity to public services for all citizens and businesses, minimising
territorial asymmetries.
• Combating digital divide – The service will be provided by mediators trained and certified by AMA and other public entities.
Each Citizen Spot working position is equipped with dual monitors/screens, one visible to the mediator and the other to the
citizen requesting the service. This allows citizens to follow in detail the procedures required for the practice of these acts.
This is intended to help citizens learn how to perform these same services independently, promoting digital literacy, while
reducing requirements and pressure on classical service delivery through physical installations.
• Collaboration – The Citizen Spots are implemented and developed through partnerships with entities of the central and local
government, the third sector, industry associations and other entities providing public services. The operational costs of the
Citizen Spots are covered by the partners, diluting these over the network of involved entities, and contributing to its long range
sustainability.
The security of sensitive operations is supported by advanced electronic identification tools already available in Portugal and
developed by AMA, namely the PIN-protected national identity card, the associated Digital Mobile Key (DMK), a system associating
a personal identification number to a mobile phone, or analogous instruments from other Member States.

OiRA – Online interactive Risk Assessment tool
Submitted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA)
Why the OiRA project?

EPSA2015111
Risk assessment is the cornerstone of efficient risk management. However,
carrying out risk assessments on health and safety at work can be quite
European Agency for Safety and Health challenging, particularly for micro and small enterprises (MSEs) which may
at Work (EU-OSHA) lack the resources or the know-how to do so effectively. The European
Santiago de Compostela, 12 Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) launched the OiRA
48003 Bilbao, Spain project with the aim to overcome this. OiRA is the first initiative at EU level to
www.oiraproject.eu encourage European MSEs to assess (and manage) their occupational risks.
www.osha.europa.eu
What is OiRA?
Contact person OiRA is a web application (tools generator) to create interactive risk
Lorenzo Munar Suard assessment tools (OiRA tools). These OiRA tools can help MSEs to put
Project Manager in place a risk assessment process – starting with the identification and
[email protected] evaluation of workplace risks, through decision making on preventive
actions and implementation, to monitoring and reporting.
50-100; Mission and Objectives
people directly involved: 1-5 The mission of OiRA is to increase the number of MSEs in the EU that carry out
a proper risk assessment and consequently manage their occupational risks.
Type of sector To achieve this, OiRA develops and disseminates practical risk assessment
Economic affairs, competition, SME; tools tailored to the specificities and needs of MSEs in Europe. EU-OSHA
Education (higher and lower), training and offers the OiRA tools generator to national/public authorities and sectoral
learning; Employment, labour related affairs social partners and encourages them to build sectoral risk assessment
and gender equality; Environment, climate tools tailored to MSEs. EU-OSHA also fosters the use of OiRA sectoral
change, agriculture (incl. food safety) and tools by ensuring broad promotion/dissemination and implementation, i.e.
fishery; Information society, technology, developing a diffusion strategy and the OiRA community which empowers
media and audio-visual; Public health and social partners, among others, to promote and support the uptake of the tools
social welfare/affairs; Public administration, by MSEs in their specific activity sectors.
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform;
Sports, youth, culture and art The OiRA community
The OiRA community is made up of the organisations/people developing
Key words of the project OiRA tools (labour inspectorates, ministries of employment, EU and national
Health and safety, risk assessment, OSH social partners). It aims to facilitate the development and dissemination
management, micro and small companies, of OiRA tools by stimulating the exchange of tools, knowledge and good
eTool, eGovernment practice, and collaborative work.
The members of the OiRA community share the same values: putting
practical risk assessment tools at the disposal of MSEs free of charge; and supporting MSEs to properly assess (and manage) their
occupational risks and by this way improving working conditions.
Added value of the OiRA tools for end-users

They are free, web-based and interactive; they are practical, adapted to the specificities of their sectors, allowing to assess their
occupational risks; they include modules and “risk statements” allowing identification of hazards and practical “solutions” to prevent
(and manage) the risks; and can be used with smartphones and tablets.
OiRA project and tools are specifically mentioned in the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014-2020 from
the European Commission, as key instruments to help micro and small enterprises to comply with occupational safety and health
legislation.

Online Certification of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
(SMEs)
Submitted by the Portuguese Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (IAPMEI)
EU Funded
In Portugal, small and medium-sized Enterprises (SME) have to be

EPSA2015249
certified to be fully recognised as such. The Online Certification of SME is
the electronic service that certifies that Portuguese enterprises meet micro,
Agency for Competitiveness and small or medium-sized condition.
Innovation (IAPMEI)
Rua dos Salazares, 842 This certification is given according to the criteria defined in Portuguese
4100 442 Porto legislation which, in turn, follows the EU recommendation concerning
Portugal the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, so that
www.iapmei.pt harmonisation of criteria across the member states is guaranteed.
Contact person The certification procedures are centralised. A unique public organisation
Rita Serrano Barbosa – IAPMEI, the Portuguese Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation –
Head of Planning and Research Unit evaluates whether an enterprise is a SME or not and, if it is, it evaluates
[email protected] specifically if it is a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise. This result is
accepted nationwide and followed by all other Portuguese public entities
Size of organisation involved in administrative procedures targeting SME. Hence, the desired
100-500; harmonisation at national level is accomplished.
The online certification of SME truly simplified the process of SME proof
Type of sector in Portugal. It has eliminated the need for enterprises to submit the same
Economic affairs, competition, SME information to different public authorities (in order to make proof of SME
individually, near each entity). And it has eliminated the need for other
Key words of the project public services involved in administrative procedures to verify documents
Certification, online certification, and make calculations in order to classify each enterprise as a micro, small
SME, microenterprise, small enterprise, or medium-sized enterprise or as a “no SME”.
medium-sized enterprise,
administrative simplification The certification process occurs entirely online, being paper-free.
The enterprises obtain their certificates exclusively by electronic means.
Any file or printed version of this certificate is valid for legal purposes.
The public services involved in administrative procedures targeting SME check online if the enterprise is a micro, small or medium-
sized enterprise. No other form of verification is legally recognised.
Portugal innovated absolutely in this field, by associating a calculation device to the declarative logic. This is a trust-based service,
although it is not a self-classification system. The enterprises do not have to make any calculations to classify themselves, but
rather they have to deliver a set of information/data, by filling in the certification form fields. The data/information interpretation and
the necessary calculation are made by the system automatisms.
In order to obtain a certificate of SME, enterprises only have to fill in the electronic form, accept the declaration that all the
information is accurate, and submit it. If the enterprise meets all the requests, an electronic certificate is automatically generated,
certifying that it is a micro, small or a medium-sized enterprise.
The certificate that is generated can be immediately visualised by the SME. It can also be immediately accessed online by any
entity that is obliged to request the SME proof on behalf of administrative procedures targeting SME, namely Public Authorities and
private entities engaged in administrative procedures targeting SME.
In order to guarantee the maximum reliability of data collected, the certification forms have strict validation rules that inhibit “blanks”
and inconsistencies. Additionally, there are legally defined auditing procedures. Each enterprise is aware that at any moment of
time it could be requested to present proof of everything that has been declared in the certification forms. If false information is
detected, the certification may be revoked, retroactively. And if any benefit was granted to the enterprise, it may be lost.

Latvia’s e-index
Submitted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional
Development of the Republic of Latvia
EU Funded
Partnership initiative Latvia’s e-index is a nationwide evaluation of the

EPSA2015122
eEnvironment in state institutions and municipalities. It provides the
notion on how active and relevant is the usage of ICT solutions in order
Ministry of Environmental Protection to improve quality and availability of provided services for residents and
and Regional Development of the entrepreneurs and to optimise internal processes of the state institutions
Republic of Latvia and municipalities.
Peldu Str. 25
1494 Rīga Latvia’s e-index is the first national level initiative helping state institutions
Latvia and municipalities to recognise their level of digital development, evaluate
www.varam.gov.lv approach and foresee solutions for more efficient development, as well
as identifying the best examples implemented by other institutions and
Contact person thus enabling experience exchange and motivating the development of
Linda Liepiņa eEnvironment. This initiative also provides support for the achievement
Senior Expert of goals set for the state in general (National Development Plan, National
[email protected] Digital Strategy, etc.) and provides localised guidance on best practice
approaches evaluated in different international benchmarks.
100-500; Latvia’s e-index contains two measurements. The e-index of state
people directly involved: 1-5 institutions was developed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection
and Regional Development (VARAM), while the e-index of municipalities
Type of sector was developed by the working group comprised of representatives of the
Information society, technology, media initiative partners chaired by Lattelecom. Powerful partners from public
and audio-visual; Public administration, administration and experts of the sectors concerned were involved for the
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform expansion and implementation of scale of the initiative (Latvian Association
of Local and Regional Governments, Latvian Large Cities Association,
Key words of the project Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association and
eGovernment, eServices, eEnvironment, Latvian Chamber of Trade and Commerce).
public services, internal processes within the
institutions, inter-institutional cooperation, Development of the e-index of the state institutions of Latvia is based on
provision of services, involvement of society a survey developed by VARAM to develop an eGovernment index of state
central institutions for the evaluation and highlighting of the implemented
activities regarding use of contemporary technological opportunities.
Survey includes a questionnaire of 102 state institutions out of 103, which were selected initially, including State Chancellery,
Chancery of the President, ministries and subordinate institutions, institutions under supervision of the Prime Minister, independent
institutions.
In general efficiency of eGovernment in the institutions is being analysed in five fields: efficient organisation of the internal processes
within the institutions, efficient inter-institutional cooperation, efficient circulation of documents, efficient provision of services and
efficient involvement of society. The e-index of the municipalities of Latvia analyses the practice in the field of eGovernment and
eEnvironment implemented by municipalities.
Participation in the municipal measurement is voluntary, and 116 out of 119 local governments participated. They will be able to
use the acquired results to become aware of their situation, compare previous achievements with other municipalities, as well as
to inspire from best examples.

The Portuguese Health Data Platform (PDS)
Submitted by the Shared Services of the Portuguese Ministry of Health (SPMS)
As it happens in many EU counties today, in 2011, Portugal’s NHS had

EPSA2015239
more than 500 islands of non-shared clinical information about its 10 million
people. Beaten by unprecedented crisis, it was a Governmental priority,
Shared Services of the Portuguese that data sharing could provide sustainability and innovation. In December
Ministry of Health (SPMS) 2011 the Clinical Informatics Commission (CIC) was created to launch
Avenida João Crisóstomo, No.9 the first version of the Portuguese Health Data Platform, as a Personal
3°, 1049 062 Lisbon Electronic Health record, a National Electronic Mechanism to share data
Portugal from federated systems, and a basis for innovation in eHealth. In 2012,
www.spms.min-saude.pt SPMS was nominated as responsible for the technical implementation of
all CIC projects. The PDS strategy results in a quality information platform,
Contact person relevant, safe, reliable, timely and contextualised. It promotes improvement
Prof. Dr. Henrique Martins of quality and access to healthcare; health information sharing, user-
President of the Shared Services centred approach while breaking professional boundaries and implements
[email protected] the National Strategy for Quality in Health.
Size of organisation PDS in a nutshell, is constituted upon a SOA architecture, allowing data
100-500; fluxes between more than 600 institutional databases, the Patient Summary
people directly involved: >15 following EU guidelines, and satellite projects like the digital Child Bulletin,
Person with Rare Disease Card, or Advanced Care Document, accessible
Type of sector via 4 portals:
Information society, technology, media and
audio-visual; Public health and social welfare/ • Patient Portal – since May 2012, which is a free Personal Health Record,
affairs; Public administration, modernisation, where the user can register access health information, view his NHS
institutional affairs, reform health data, and consume online services like booking medical appointments
• Professional Portal – since June 2012, provides healthcare professionals
Key words of the project access to clinical information of the patient present in other health institutions
Health data, personal health record, health and central repositories.
services, information sharing, production • Institutional Portal - since 2014, provides statistics regarding the use of
knowledge and experience sharing, health the platform and progressively anonymised clinical information/patient
innovation registries of orphan diseases for example.
• International Portal - since July 2013, it supports the implementation of
international projects, particularly in sharing the Patient Summary allowing
cross-border data-sharing as well as R&D&I project participation.
For these reasons PDS was already recognised by Portugal (it has won the President of the Republic distinction as well as an annual
eGov Award) as a high-added value project for the citizens. It was created through a low-resource, phased, progressive process,
taking into account IT state of the art but also the needs of governance bodies. One of its originalities was the co-architecture with
the National Commission for Data Protection and its strengths the implementation side by side with IT and Clinical people from the
health care units (the so-called PDS Ambassadors), an engagement that is fed by monthly regular benchmarking reports. The health
professional can access the digitally available medical information of the patient which is essential in a first appointment or even more
so at the emergency room. In the case of chronic diseases, professionals can additionally monitor the measurements of biometric
values registered by the patient themselves via the Patient Portal. Additionally, offering alerts for appointments and the administration
of vaccines, PDS also aims to promote self-management of health, in the logic of a contextualised prevention.
Portugal is also increasingly interconnected with emerging developments in Europe, PDS will be the instrument to support new
needs, some being propelled by SPMS itself (www.expandproject.eu), others stemming from the cross-border healthcare directive.
In the dawn of wirelessly ubiquitous IT in eHealth PDS is available on mobile platforms and growing into mobiles, wearables and
teleMonitoring as part of the Portuguese Mobile Vision for eHealth.

Navarra’s Integrated Chronic Care Strategy (ICCS)
Submitted by the Government of Navarra, Department of Health
Navarra’s Integrated Chronic Care Strategy (ICCS) via quadruple helix

EPSA2015100
collaboration project has been found by all the stakeholders (public, private,
educational and citizens) as an innovative solution for Chronic care as well
Government of Navarra as has transformed the Public Administration from a “paternalist” role into
Department of Health a more encouraging and leader one, fostering the shared participation and
Plaza de la Paz s/n collaboration and empowering the patients and their care environment to
31002 Pamplona, Navarra become more responsible, pro-active and known of their own chronicities.
Spain
www.navarra.es As a result, the chronic patients have improved their life quality and security,
have learned more about their pathologies, their satisfaction with the public
Contact person healthcare system has improved, as well as their care environment has
Jose Ignacio Yurss Arruga done. Local authorities have taken new responsibilities, the Public health
Director of Primary Care Unit system is innovating in the healthcare model, new businesses have arisen
[email protected] and the knowledge centres have a new perspective to research about
chronicity and are also developing new skills and capacities adapted to
Size of organisation this new model.
>5000;
people directly involved: >15 It is expected that within 1-2 years the chronicity costs are optimised,
medical visits and hospital admissions due to chronicities should have
Type of sector decreased, and the ICCS project should have become a key project for
Education (higher and lower), training and chronic care sustainability. The current health-care system is no longer
learning; Public health and social welfare/ sustainable. 70% of healthcare costs are spent on chronic diseases and
affairs; Public administration, modernisation, 41% of healthcare costs are dedicated to hospital care. Nowadays in
institutional affairs, reform; Regional policy Navarra, 70% of Primary Care (PC) medical appointments and 60% of
and development, decentralisation hospital admissions are due to chronicities.
Key words of the project Demographic change and how to deal with it has become one of the main
Leader role, quadruple helix, sustainable priorities in Europe where it is estimated that by 2060, 1 out of 3 people
health, chronic care, social inclusion, will be over 65 years old. Chronicity is not only a health issue but affects
ageing, innovative ecosystem, also life quality, autonomy, and patient’s environment with an important
new stakeholders’ engagement model, economic impact.
bottom-up approach, intelligent adaptation
for economic growth In Navarra the Department of Health has taken a new role as leader of
the ICCS involving quadruple helix stakeholders (public administration,
private companies, education and knowledge entities and citizens) and
aligning this new model with the Regional Public Health strategies and the Regional Innovation Smart Specialisation Strategy
(RIS3): MODERNA Plan. The ICCS is based on a new cross-cutting perspective methodology that starts with an integral patient
assessment, including clinical, functional, social and psychoaffective perspectives, measured by 76 indicators generating an
integral diagnosis which will be the basis for an individual ICCS Plan for the patient and his environment.
This ICCS Plan includes the “Chronic Patient School”, better understanding of the pathologies, pharmacology and healthy life
habits (self-care training). The project has also developed an IT tool that communicates PC with clinic specialities called EUNATE.
This working model is practicable – not only in Spain, but also in the rest of Europe, including an adaptation to the Regional
framework in each case. Finally, the implementation of the ICCS in Navarra will provide future economic growth due to the
improvement of new professional profiles, employment creation, chronic care costs decrease and more efficient public finances in
this important area to achieve a better society.

Paradigm Change in the Communication Strategy – Increasing Customer
Value and Potential Savings with Customer-Focused Information and
eGovernment Solutions instead of Mass Communication
Submitted by the Regional Government of Upper Austria, Department for Family Affairs
The Upper Austrian Family Department (OÖ Familienreferat) wants to

EPSA2015152
react to the changes in information behaviour and create online portals
with which families can be informed quickly and simply. In consideration of
Regional Government of Upper Austria, all the usability aspects, the online portals should be tailored exactly to the
Department for Family Affairs needs of the users.
Bahnhofplatz 1
4021 Linz The focus is on increasing the customer value and potential savings with
Austria customer-focused information and eGovernment solutions instead of mass
www.familienkarte.at communication.
Contact person Media use has changed dramatically over the last years and electronic
Franz Schützeneder forms have become much more important. Family support has to be widely
Head of the Department for Family Affairs communicated. Along with print media, electronic forms constitute the most
[email protected] significant possibility to reach and inform citizens. For this reason the Upper
Austrian Family Department has completely revised its communications
Size of organisation policy in line with its customer base.
1-25;
people directly involved: 1-5 With the IT department of the Upper Austrian government an interface had
to be developed in order to apply the already existing customer data to
Type of sector the different modules. With a new homepage, an app for smartphones,
Information society, technology, media and newsletters, eGovernment solutions for applications, the electronic family
audio-visual; Public health and social card instead of a plastic card, the parental education account and other
welfare/affairs; Public administration, online features new costumer values were created. In public administration
modernisation, institutional affairs, reform they are a benchmark for many departments as far as customer-orientation
and communication are concerned.
Communication strategy, family, media use, They offer many additional user-friendly features and functions (e.g.
customer-focused information, increase support and online applications), easy handling and a clearly structured
customer value user interface.
The Upper Austrian family magazine and the homepage, which so far have
been optimised and adapted to current technical advances, have been supplemented with an app, an online service and two
newsletters in order to inform the customers in a more up-to-date and target-oriented manner.
In the future the family card app should forward all the important information from the Family Department to the mobile phone.
Mobile Upper Austrian family cards, current highlights, the digital parental programme account, general events, parental education
programmes and information on family support etc. should be quickly retrievable on a smartphone. With the app parents will always
have their own personal Upper Austrian family card with them on their mobile phone. Thus, there is no longer a need for a plastic card.
With the online service of the Upper Austrian family card families should be able to manage the Upper Austrian parental education
vouchers personally in a digital parental education account.
All of the data and processes on the homepage, the app and the newsletters are navigated via a central content management
system and subsequently, there is no need to double the maintenance.
Within one year the investment costs in the new information tools have redeemed themselves!

Tourist Logistic Platform – Balearic Islands Project
Submitted by the Agency for Tourism of the Balearic Islands, Balearic Islands
Regional Ministry for Tourism
The Tourist Logistic Platform is a new way of managing the Balearic Islands
EPSA2015194
as a tourist destination. No DMO has yet an innovative solution as this one.
It is a solution that helps tourists to “feel like if they were at home”, so they
Agency for Tourism of the Balearic can move around the Balearic Islands, safely, easily and calmly as they
Islands, Balearic Islands Regional do in their own places of residence. This can only be achieved by smartly
Ministry for Tourism managing the entire content of assets anchored in their territory, that is,
Edificio ATB. C/ Rita Levi, s/n making available to the residents and tourists all assets of the Balearic
Parc BIT. Ctra Valldemossa, km.7,5 Islands displayed in real-time information: from the nearest open pharmacy
07121 Palma de Mallorca to the nearest bus-stop.
Balearic Islands, Spain
www.illesbalears.travel The Agency for Tourism of the Balearic Islands is a public organisation
that belongs to the regional Ministry of Innovation, Research and Tourism
Contact person and is responsible for promoting abroad the Balearic Islands: Mallorca,
Mrs Pilar Carbonell Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera and Palma de Mallorca.
General Director
[email protected] Balearic Islands is the first European holiday destination of Europe
receiving almost 14 million tourists a year. It is also the most important
Size of organisation place in Europe with specialised enterprises dedicated to developing ICT
50-100; in tourism.
The Tourist Logistic Platform project emerged due to a need to fully support
Type of sector tourism in the low and the medium season. The project contributes to
Tourism extend the tourist season all year round, offering several information to
different demand profiles all year round; that means that a German tourist
Key words of the project will not receive the same information as a Russian one, neither the same
Branding and managing a tourist destination, information in June and in January.
innovation, public administrations, services
for the citizen and tourist Besides, there is an important innovation in this project that consists of
monitoring tourist flows in real time. The platform structures a central
management system of tourist destination demand and all events related
with visitors and tourists in real time.
Another advantage of the platform is that it is a cross-public administration project that involves the participation of 4 public
administration levels: national, regional, insular and local. It is thus, the first experience ever in Europe that links together 4 levels
of public administration generating synergies between all the administrations involved in terms not only of contents and services,
but also of certification and legislation.
This ambitious project is currently in its beta stage, available to receive feedback and suggestions from users, which will help not
only making it a successful first result soon operative, but also ensuring that the whole TIE project suits the existing and future
needs of “our beloved tourists”, residents and local companies. Tourist Logistic Platform is a project for everyone, a project for the
Balearic Islands.

Available Cinema
Submitted by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS)
In 2011 the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) and the Swedish
EPSA2015241
Film Institute (SFI) were commissioned by the Swedish Ministry of Culture
to devise a technical system for audio description and audio subtitles for
Post and Telecom Authority use in digital cinemas. (85% of cinemas in Sweden are digital). Audio
PTS, P.O. Box 5398 description means that events and settings in a film are verbally described
102 49 Stockholm and read alongside the dialogue and other sounds in the film.
Sweden
www.pts.se Audio description makes films and stage performances available to blind
and visually impaired. This has earlier been made possible through audio
Contact person description interpreters present in the cinema where the film is shown.
Charlotte Aleman The system with interpreters has however limited the number of showings
Project Owner available to visually impaired. In 2014 only 150 such shows with audio
[email protected] description interpreters took place in Sweden. Some 1300 visually impaired
attended these shows.
100-500; As a comparison it can be said that the ten most viewed Swedish films in
people directly involved: >15 cinemas in 2014 were shown on 63,401 occasions. The ten most viewed
foreign films in Swedish cinemas in 2014 were shown on 82,058 occasions.
Type of sector If these 20 films had had audio description and audio subtitles the number
Justice, police, human rights and security; of films available to visually impaired and dyslexics would have increased
Information society, technology, media and dramatically.
audio-visual; Sports, youth, culture and art
The technical solution that has been developed utilises the visually impaired’
Key words of the project own smartphones. The user downloads one of five apps produced in the
Visually impaired, dyslexia, audio description, project from Androids Google Play or Apples App Store. This increases the
audio subtitles, cinema, film potential number of films shown with audio description dramatically. The
users’ smartphone registers the soundtrack of the film with its microphone
and synchronises it with the audio description track which the user listens
to in his or her own headphones.
Audio subtitles is a system where subtitles to a film are read aloud in the users headphones. This enables dyslexic that cannot
read subtitles to understand the dialogue when the film is in a foreign language. It is estimated that 10 percent of the population or
1,000,000 people in Sweden have a visual impairment or dyslexia. But the solution also enables young people who have not yet
learned to read to watch films with subtitles.
Representatives from all parts of the chain from producers to consumers have been involved in the project. Working groups
consisting of representatives from the Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired (SRF), Visually Impaired Youth Sweden (US),
the Swedish Exhibitors Association, the Swedish Film Distributors Association, the Swedish Film and TV Producers Association,
Swedish Agency for Accessible Media (MTM), the Film Directors branch of the Swedish Union for Performing Arts and Film, the
Swedish Association of Dyslexic, the People´s Parks and Community Centres in Sweden as well as the production companies
Balken Produktion, Scanbox and Filmtec, the film producers SF Film, Nordisk Film and 20th Century Fox and the cinema chains
Svensk Bio and SF Bio have been involved in the project.
A number of practical tests have been undertaken during the project. They have been conducted in ordinary commercial cinemas
with an audience consisting of visually impaired and people with dyslexia. It is estimated that the deployment of this technical
solution could increase the number of cinema visits in Sweden dramatically. The developed system does not need any technical
installations in the cinemas. The tracks with audio description and audio subtitles are downloaded with an app from a server to the
users’ smartphones. This also eliminates the need for distribution of tracks on physical media to the cinemas.

Right from the Start
Submitted by the Upper Austrian Health Insurance
The period during pregnancy, birth and the child’s first years are considered
EPSA2015036
to be a very vulnerable phase in the life of expecting and young parents.
It is not only the woman’s body that changes; also the relationship
Upper Austrian Health Insurance undergoes changes. There are many worries as soon as the baby is born.
Gruberstraße 77 Why doesn’t my child drink? Which foods should I give him? How do I
4021 Linz care for baby’s teeth? When does my child need a toothbrush? What kind
Austria of financial support is available to me? How do I care for baby skin? How
www.ooegkk.at/vonanfangan can I make sure that my child is safe from accidents? What vaccinations
does my child need? Some parents also worry about their own health.
Contact person About 80% of all young mothers suffer from the so-called baby blues. This
Maria Luise Ettmayer can develop into postnatal depression in some cases. Financial difficulties
Project management may add to this stressful situation. To put it simply: The first years of a
[email protected] child’s life are full of joy but also full of insecurities. The Upper Austrian
Health Insurance undertakes specific efforts to provide ongoing support to
Size of organisation parents right from the start.
500-5000;
people directly involved: >15 The idea of the programme “... right from the start!” is to provide parents
and their children with comprehensive valuable information on topics such
Type of sector as nutrition, psychosocial health, smoking, vaccinations, dental health,
Public health and social welfare/affairs accident prevention and care. The aim is to ensure that children grow up
healthily. The target group of the (expectant) parents is considered to be
Key words of the project very receptive to information, which is useful for their own health, but also
Prevention, quality-assured, for the health of their offspring. It is also clear that this target group also
(expectant) parents and their babies obtains a lot of information from the internet and books. Experts (midwives,
gynaecologists, pediatricians) are also being consulted. Many of the
prevailing insecurities are only inadequately dealt with despite the mass of
information with regards to pregnancy, birth and early childhood. Different expert opinions, views and advice are often given to the
target group, which only leads to even more doubts.
The main focus and value of the project is therefore to provide coherent and quality information. Information can be obtained at
free workshops, but it is also possible for parents to get information right from the start of pregnancy and beyond the birth of their
child using the stage relevant communication tools which provide information on the most important topics. A core element of the
program is to offer this service to all expectant parents for free, regardless of their insurance status. The easy access aims to also
reach vulnerable groups. Moreover, it is their wish to provide special services to specific groups (deaf, educationally deprived,
migrants) in order to achieve social equality.
One of the essential objectives of the program is to provide expectant parents with information which is needs-based, consistent
and quality assured. Expert training completes the program. Experts are informed about the latest recommendations in specific
areas during specifically designed training sessions. This ensures a consistent approach across the region.

Sensitisation for Climate Protection Measures in Daily Life –
Workshop for Female Migrants
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment
and Water Management
The overall aim of the project was to sensitise female migrants to climate
EPSA2015127
protection. The project realisation was done by Peregrina, an organisation
assisting female migrants in integration by several ways: legal advice,
Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, social affairs and verbal skills.
Environment and Water Management
Stubenbastei 5 Throughout the project lifetime (July – December 2014) 14 workshops
1010 Vienna were held, in which 154 female migrants of many different countries and
Austria with diverse mother tongues (29 different mother tongues!) experienced
www.bmlfuw.gv.at in practical examples how to integrate climate protection measures into
their everyday life. The practical examples were taken out of all kinds of
Contact person daily situations such as cooking, shopping, mobility, etc. Each workshop
Angela Friedrich was attended by 7 to 25 participants, aging from 18 to 68 years. Focus of
Senior Adviser the workshops were „energy saving” and „conscious consumption“, which
[email protected] seemed to be also the most relevant themes for most of the participants
according to the evaluation done at the very end of the workshops.
500-5000; The underlying thought – climate protection measures can help to save
people directly involved: 1-5 money through conscious consumption – can easily be realised and is
important given that most of the female migrants are in a social-economically
Type of sector disadvantaged situation. Lack of information is thus leading to a lose-lose
Education (higher and lower), training and situation, where environmentally “negative” behaviour is more costly than
learning; Environment, climate change, environmentally friendly behaviour (win-win situation).
agriculture (incl. food safety) and fishery
For this reason the focus in the workshops was on practical measures that
Key words of the project can easily be copied and integrated into everybody’s daily life. A second,
Female migrants, climate change, quality of very important objective of the workshops was the strengthening of the
life, consumption patterns, energy saving participation in society of female migrants.
With regard to the comprehension much attention was given to the language
skills of the migrants: easy to understand language (short sentences, etc.),
support of the teaching and learning content by pictures, films, group games and assistance in the participants’ own mother
tongues (five different languages were offered – Arabic, Armenian, French, English and Turkish), specially designed workshops and
inclusion of cultural skills of the participants. Participants were invited to bring examples of “sustainability in practice” in their home
countries to achieve group learning effects.
To maximise the value of the workshops participants were also encouraged to spread the knowledge gained in their families and
private networks to utilise multiplication effects. Through this multiplication effect about other 300 migrants were reached.

The Chatroom of the Austrian Student Psychological
Counselling Services
Submitted by the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services
Especially among the target group of students, the use of New Media has
EPSA2015094
reached a common state and has to be considered when thinking about
communication. Young people are used to this means of communication.
Student Psychological Counselling Therefore, the Austrian Student Psychological Counselling Services
Services launched a Chatroom in August 2014 in order to provide short online
Teinfaltstraße 8 counselling sessions for students and those interested in studying.
1010 Vienna
Austria The concept of psychological online counselling as in this Chatroom is
www.studierendenberatung.at a pioneering task in Austria. As the Chatroom is primarily intended for
information issues but in some cases also for therapeutic topics, it provides
Contact person state-of-the-art counselling. Two articles in the well-recognised German
Dr Paul Wilkens magazine “Psychologie heute” from January 2014 argue that the effects of
Head online counselling are equal to those of face-to-face counselling.
[email protected]
The counselling services as well as the handling of sensitive data and
Size of organisation protocols strictly follow the regulations set in the law on protection of data
50-100; privacy, the law for psychologists and the law for promotion of studies.
people directly involved: 6-10 The concept has been approved by the Austrian Data Protection Authority.
Type of sector Due to its innovative concept, the Chatroom reaches (potential) clients
Education (higher and lower), training and who would otherwise be excluded from psychological counselling. This
learning; Public health and social welfare/ may result from reduced mobility, handicaps, social disadvantages,
affairs family attitudes, migration background, etc. The counselling sessions are
also possible in English. The Chatroom takes the diversity aspect into
Key words of the project consideration by catering to all groups of (potential) students.
Chatroom, online counselling, psychological
counselling, student counselling The current team consists of four counsellors and an experienced supervisor
who is Clinical and Health Psychologist as well as psychotherapist. Every
team member is Clinical and Health Psychologist and/or psychotherapist
following the corresponding legal obligations such as professional secrecy, handling of personal data, etc.
Presently, regular counselling hours and additional individual appointments are possible in order to offer the clients a flexible
service. There is a tight social network, so if necessary, clients are referred to other institutions/counsellors/therapists for individual,
direct support.
So far, feedback on the homepage has been thoroughly positive, it is perceived as inviting, user-friendly and clear. Of course, it is
also suitable for Smartphones. The budgets are covered and regular operation has been started.

A Wealth of Ideas – IdéRiget
Submitted by the Rigshospitalet
Access and inclusion – New innovation culture at Denmark’s largest

EPSA2015153
university hospital, Rigshospitalet
With the innovation programme A Wealth of Ideas “IdéRiget”, Rigshospitalet
Rigshospitalet set out on a new course, i.e. to make the obvious move to boost public
Blegdamsvej 9 sector innovation by inviting frontline staff to come forward with their
2100 Copenhagen innovative ideas. What would be more obvious to do and yet never done
Denmark with scalability.
Contact person The scope of the innovations program was to:
Katrine Seier Fridthjof • accelerate the number of innovative solutions that add value from a
Nurse patient’s perspective;
[email protected] • view the patient as someone with the ambition to regain as much control
and uphold as many every day routines as possible;
Size of organisation • start playing “catch” with the patients instead of “ping pong”;
>5000; • find solutions that really solve the problem and not just transfer it to
people directly involved: 15 another part of the public sector.
Type of sector Full scale prototypes in a fraction of time
Public health and social welfare/affairs Good ideas with a strong potential to change rarely go directly from idea
to execution. Even the most promising idea starts in a form which must be
Key words of the project elaborated further and iterated several times before it can be launched.
Innovation, knowledge management, IdéRiget provides the time, resources and access to executive decision
new leadership approaches power that can clear the road to proven concepts and implementation.
10 entrepreneurs were given a timeframe of 6 months, full compensation,

a little money to pay for prototyping, consultancy services from the internal “Change and Innovation Team”. Additionally training
was provided by program partners DTU Business from the Technical University of Denmark supplying international faculty on
an executive program level. Governance for IdéRiget was handled by the 8 members of The Innovation Board covering 5 external
members with huge experience from private sector innovation and 3 internal members with substantial insight in clinical and hospital
management issues.
Leukemia patients getting equipped for a wireless world

The Innovation Board selected the two very best concepts for a large scale implementation. One of these makes it possible for patients
with leukemia to receive chemotherapy in the comfort of their homes due to the use of a portable digital pump. The concept enables
patients to spend more time with their families, stay on their own favourite menus, keep up with physical training, go shopping, enjoy
usual pastime routines and avoid risks of acquiring infections at the hospital (due to the disease and its treatment).
The patients will come to the clinic every second or third day to exchange the pump and to have a feedback session with doctors
and nurses before going back for another stint at home. The solution also has the potential to reduce ward capacity and to sharpen
focus on the in-clinic patients most in need of 24/7 attention. This service offer is new to Danish cancer patients and it combines
key issues such as “patient-centred”, “relational
coordination” and an “inter professionalism team Results from early implementation (Leukemia 1/1-2015-31/8-2015)
set up”. The use of the digital pump concept is also #Patients 40
extended to treatment with antibiotics to patients #Treatment regimens given 75
with serious infections that cause hospitalisation
for up to 4-6 weeks. This is applied not only to #Saved in-patient bed days 250
leukemia patients but also to patients from cardio- Duration (standard concept) 8-11 days as in-patient per treatment period
vascular and orthopaedic surgery clinics. Duration (pump concept) 3-5 out-patient visits per treatment period
European/National/Regional Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 115
Development of Lifelong Learning Opportunities in Rural
Areas
Submitted by the Lithuanian Education Development Centre
EU Funded
Multifunctional Centres (MCs) in rural areas are being established by

EPSA2015255
municipalities to provide public services targeting the needs of local people.
The nature of these institutions goes closely with the idea of community
Education Development Centre centres. Their main objective is to improve the quality and accessibility
M. Katkaus str. 44 of public educational, cultural and social services for local people and
09217 Vilnius, Lithuania to strengthen community relations in order to ensure economic, cultural,
www.udc.upc.smm.lt / www.upc.smm.lt environmental and social development.
Contact person However, the process of bringing different services together is not as
Giedre Tumosaite smooth as expected. The hardest task appears to be collaboration of MCs
Project Manager with other public service providers, ensuring coordinated and complex
[email protected] actions. They also face the issues of insufficiency of legal base, lack of
practical experience, etc.
100-500; The project was meant to follow this process and help form a unified
people directly involved: 1-5 understanding of the purpose and functions of MCs; promote inter-agency
cooperation among various actors to ensure coordination, supply and
Type of sector availability of public services; prepare and empower staff of MCs. The project
Education (higher and lower), training aimed to improve quality of public services for communities and develop
and learning; Public administration, opportunities of lifelong learning for community members.
modernisation, institutional affairs,
reform; Regional policy and development, The project was implemented in 2012-2015. Activities were concentrated
decentralisation in 3 areas:
1. creating and empowering a network of MCs;
Key words of the project 2. providing competence and capacity building opportunities of those
Inter-agency cooperation, multifunctional directly involved in management and daily activities of MCs;
centre, community centre, empowering 3. providing non-formal education opportunities for local people facing
social exclusion.
Main activities
• an inter-ministerial working group (involving ministries of Education and Science, Culture, Social Affairs and Labour, Health,
Association of Local Authorities etc.) was established to coordinate the implementation of MC related projects and activities.
• 42 MCs (from 28 municipalities) were selected to participate in the project.
• 20 Cooperation agreements were signed between local authorities and Education Development Centre, where local authorities
committed to take active part in the realisation of the project, to nominate a local coordination council for each MC (composed of
members of local community, local institutions and NGOs, MC, other stakeholders) and, after consulting MC, appointed a curator
that would take intermediate and coordinating role within local community and institutions, thus ensuring inter-agency cooperation
at local level.
• The concept of long-term training program for staff of MCs and local coordinating councils was designed. It included:
- 1-day Needs Analysis Session with the members of local coordinating council, the curator, etc., to formulate their learning needs;
- 4-day-long Training Course based on the Needs Analysis. Each MC was represented by a team of 3 persons (curator and
2 members of local coordinating council). Each team prepared an Activity plan for the period of 6.5 months (plans were based
on the principles set in the draft of the Concept of MCs thus testing them in practice).
• “Practical guide for MCs” was prepared and published.
• 1243 local inhabitants in 27 MCs took part in non-formal education programs.
116 European/National/Regional Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches
Police Competence Training
Submitted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior, Department I/9,
Competence Management
The Austrian Ministry of the Interior considers the Austrian police force as
EPSA2015168
an organisation that protects human rights. This means that human rights
serve as base for police work. In order to already embed this understanding
Federal Ministry of the Interior, in the basic police training, the project ‘Police Competence Training’ was
Department I/9, Competence Management initiated among others in July 2014.
Marokkanergasse
1030 Vienna Competence research is considered as the focus of this project, as, apart
Austria from qualification, the term “competence” clearly places the requirements
for police intervention as priority. Moreover, the term seems suited to
Contact persons describe the coping with complex, dynamic and especially unforeseeable
Mag. Andreas Nagl situations.
Manager of Department I/9
[email protected] The project as such is split into two major parts. On the one hand this is the
Thomas Schlesinger M.A. set-up of a competence profile for police duty while on the other hand this
Competence Management is the development for a competence training for the basic police training.
[email protected]
In the context of the example “violence within the family”, this means that
Size of organisation law enforcement officials who are still in training are not only trained in
>5000; the relevant matters of law but also attend modules, in which they work
people directly involved: >15 on the solution-oriented handling of concrete situations in form of role-
plays. This approach serves to prevent or terminate domestic violence.
Type of sector Accordingly, police officers are confronted with a simulated scene of an
Education (higher and lower), training and incident based on police practice and need to act in a simulated real-time
learning situation in a social-communicative, tactical and human-rights complying
as well as solution-oriented way. Furthermore, they need to reflect as well
Key words of the project as document their behaviour thereafter.
Police competence training, human rights,
police science, participatory research The environment for the training is thus changed situationally. This form
of training follows a holistic approach and allows for the expression of
competences in different core-competence fields that are relevant for
everyday police situations. The special characteristic of this approach is the cooperation that is to be pointed out as the important
innovation of this project. In fact, this project was developed based on the active involvement of societal representative groups and
experts from external scientific research institutions as well as thanks to the continued support of police-internal working groups.
By involving external training experts, the development of practice-oriented educational material and curricula in accordance with
the European Qualification Framework are also followed in the project work. Moreover, it is fairly innovative that this project allows
for results to be achieved on different levels. Based on the special situation that police officers cooperate with social scientists,
fascinating processes that can then be used on the level of organisational development become obvious.
Due to the active involvement of research results derived from research projects related to safety and security, which the BM.I
participated in as essential user (e.g. the project POLIS, detailed information available at www.queraum.org), educational material
that is based on empirical data and orient themselves towards police-relevant everyday situations could be developed.
All these results achieved from previous projects and based on the special constellation within the cooperation are going to be
united in the project ‘Police Competence Training’ and illustrate an overall picture which might be of essential use to other European
police training centres.
In case this concept were taken over, it would be advantageous for other police training centres that the concept could be
implemented without any increased time- or finance-related efforts.
European/National/Regional Project / Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches 117
Challenge-Driven Innovation – Societal Challenges as
Growth Opportunities
Submitted by VINNOVA, the Swedish Innovation Agency
Nominee
In 2011, as the first government agency in the world, VINNOVA (the

EPSA2015105
Swedish Innovation Agency) launched a program which constitutes a
path-breaking approach to tackling societal challenges and achieving
VINNOVA concrete and system-transforming results. This ground-breaking policy
Mäster Samuelsgatan 56 instrument, Challenge-Driven Innovation, combines innovation promotion
Stockholm with societal challenges in an effort to turn challenges into opportunities for
Sweden growth, prosperity and sustainable development. And it works.
www.vinnova.se/en
One key element is the application of a stage-gate approach, where the
Contact person government funds relatively more in the early stages of the project, thus
Daniel Rencrantz assuming a large portion of the risk, but as the project moves through the
Programme Manager stages, the project partners and the consortium bear an increasing share
[email protected] of the costs.
Size of organisation Also, in their effort to promote system-transforming change, they rely
100-500; on a user-, demand- and stakeholder-driven approach, they mobilise
people directly involved: >15 interactions and stimulate partnerships across a broad range of sectors,
actors and research disciplines, and identify and drive necessary changes
Type of sector in framework conditions (policies, regulations, institutions, demand, human
Science, research, innovation capital formation, etc.) to enable structural change. While VINNOVA’s
programs are often operationalised using a stakeholder-driven approach,
Key words of the project the Challenge-Driven Innovation program is their most complex, demanding
Societal challenges, user-driven innovation, and user-driven program, for example due to the bottom-up approach
sustainable growth adopted and broad scope.
Users and customers must be active in the projects and broad societal
challenges must be tackled, resulting in a need for complex consortiums and governance.
Finally, they apply policy experimentation and learning, with structured feedback loops, in order to improve continuously their
approach and implementation of the program and they strive for a customer-oriented approach (including minimising bureaucracy
and ensuring professionalism, efficiency and transparency) when it comes to their calls for proposals, evaluation processes,
management and follow-up of the projects.
The results have attracted great interest at all levels in the innovation system, from politicians to researchers. For example,
the project “Patient Journey” addresses poor communication in healthcare processes, and it has received recognitions such as
the Award for the European Prize for Innovation in Public Administration (Category for Citizen) with the argument that it can
“revolutionise the whole healthcare system”.
The program has renewed VINNOVA’s portfolio of actors, i.e. they reach actors that have never been in touch with VINNOVA.
• 90% of the projects that are rejected at stage 2 continue the work in some form, meaning that the program has a mobilising effect
with respect to tackling societal challenges.
• All projects address green sustainable growth and/or socially sustainable growth. For example, one project has, among many
results, built the world’s most northern passive house in their quest for attractive and energy efficient cities in cold climate.
They are convinced that if the public sector wants to address societal challenges then it is necessary to rethink the funding structure
and work methods so that it really puts demand and societal needs at the centre of attention. This transformation, which will
continue and evolve, has by no means been an easy journey for them, but it has been necessary and rewarding.
118 European/National/Regional Project / Sound public finance

Global Find
Submitted by the Portuguese Business Development Agency, Aicep Global Parques
Global Find uses a GIS platform and a search engine to find available sites
EPSA2015009
in Continental Portugal suitable to accommodate industrial and logistic
projects. Using a multi-criteria analysis, the tool enables an investor, with
Portuguese Business Development internet access, to find a site in a business park in Portugal, which meets
Agency, Aicep Global Parques their project requirements.
Rua da Artilharia Um, nr 79-7
1250-038 Lisbon The tool was developed in 2008 by Aicep Global Parques, a public held
Portugal company specialised in park management and business location. The goal
www.globalparques.pt was to assist Industrial and Logistics Companies in search of a new site
and to address the lack of systematised information that is critical to that
Contact person purpose. Before Global Find’s development, information about available
Maria Alexandre Costa sites for industrial use was scarce and scattered and implied a long process
Technical Expert of contacts and gathering of information in order to accommodate the
[email protected] investors’ needs. By overcoming those constraints with a tool that allows
an efficient and swift search at national level, Global Find aims to develop
Size of organisation the dynamics of business building in Portugal and make the country more
25-50; successful in the capture of foreign investment.
By putting together a dedicated team and the necessary financial resources,
Type of sector aicep Global Parques was able, over a period of a year and a half, to
Economic affairs, competition, SME; put in place a web tool with the basic information and an initial sample of
Information society, technology, media 20 business parks offering 2.000 plots. The costs involved in the process
and audio-visual; Public administration, were of about €280,000 including human resources, software, promotional
modernisation, institutional affairs, material and launching event. The project’s current fixed annual costs are
reform; Regional policy and development, around €9,000 for software update, hardware maintenance and annual
decentralisation licensing.
Keywords of the project By filling in the query in the platform’s entry page, regarding required
Global find, business location, investment, area, choice of brownfield or greenfield, proximity to main transport
industrial sites procurement, search engine infrastructures and/or universities, as well as ranges of indicators such
as level of education in the region, the tool will show the best available
solutions in an interactive map and will allow the investor to access to
detailed information on various points. In addition to the multi-criteria query the tool allows free search with keywords, browsing
the map, information of points of interest and access to socio-economic profile reports with detailed information about the regions,
plot reports with technical features and comparative reports comparing up to 5 locations. These reports may be printed or saved.
The use of Global Find is free of charge but implies a registration for the attribution of a password allowing login of the user.
By logging in, an investor gains access to the map, the characterisation and description of several interesting features in the
industrial or logistic context, such as data regarding ports, airports and logistic platforms, road and train network, universities and
state laboratories in a given region, nearby existing economic activities and companies operating in the business parks included in
the platform. Visualisation of photos and promotional films of the facilities is also available.
Global Find offers helpdesk support through a dedicated e-mail. For more in-depth information or a tailor-made procurement,
aicep Global Parques experts provide customised consulting services to the investor, upon requirement. The consultancy services
complement the online services and use Global Find features for procurements based on specific criteria, only available in desktop,
such as population density, average wage, areas reserved for industrial use not included in business parks, sites with a minimum
distance from urban centres, etc.
Global Find can be visualised in Portuguese, English, Spanish and German.
European/National/Regional Project / Sound public finance 119

Public Contracts Portal (BASE)
Submitted by the Portuguese Real Estate Institute (INCI)
The “Portal BASE” (hereinafter referred to as “BASE”) was created after

EPSA2015208
the publication of the Portuguese Public Contracts Code, in January 2008,
which transposed Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC. It gathers
Real Estate Institute (INCI) all relevant information on public procurement in Portugal and makes it
Av. Julio Dinis, 11 available to citizens in an open and transparent way.
Lisbon
Portugal This new Code introduced major changes to public procurement, and
the most innovative ones include the possibility of using fully electronic
Contact person procedures in contract formation, which later on became mandatory in
Isabel Rosa all tender procedures. When establishing this obligation, the Portuguese
Public Contracts Portal Coordinator Government also decided that this task should not be performed by a
[email protected] single platform, thus paving the way for the emergence of a private market
of electronic platforms.
100-500; That decision led to the creation of the BASE as a single portal that
people directly involved: 6-10 collects all information on public procurement and publishes it in an open
and transparent way, thus becoming an instrument of accountability and
Type of sector transparency in public purchasing.
Public procurement
The BASE collects information on two stages of the procurement
Key words of the project procedure: the formation and the performance of public contracts.
Electronic public procurement, This information comes from different entities and is transmitted to the
accountability, transparency, interoperability, BASE in “data blocks” at different times during the procedure:
public administration reform
Whenever a notice on the opening of a procurement procedure is published
in the national Official Journal its content is automatically sent to the BASE,
thus creating a registration of that procedure. Likewise, the Electronic Procurement Platforms send the information to the BASE during
two or three different stages of the tender procedure, depending on whether it is a competitive procedure or a direct award.
Therefore, when conducting their procurement procedures through the electronic platforms, contracting authorities create a data
basis that is automatically transmitted to the BASE. Contracting authorities interact directly with the BASE after they conclude any
contract. “Data blocks” forwarded to the BASE vary according to the type of contract and the procedure chosen for its formation.
Information submitted by a contracting authority is always available to that authority, who can even manage their projects through
the BASE. This functionality is rather important for small entities with no monitoring systems of their own.
To promote transparency and a better understanding of public procurement, information made available to the public includes:
notices on the opening of procurement procedures and the contracts concluded under direct award and open procedures.
Furthermore, the BASE provides statistical information on contracts, by type of procedure, contractual value and date. This information
can be represented in tables of values and in temporal and geographical charts, and can be customised by the user.
The BASE also gives access to the Public Works Observatory (OOP), an information sub-system that manages the most relevant
aspects of the formation and performance of public works contracts and concessions.
All that information is analysed, processed and subsequently used to develop a wide range of studies and statistical analyses.
Part of it is also published, thus becoming a valuable tool in the drafting of indicators, reports and statistics.

SABO’s Kombohus – Forcing Prices Down to Raise Public
Housing Construction
Submitted by the Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies (SABO)
Sweden is currently facing a significant housing shortage caused by a

EPSA2015103
level of residential construction that has been far too low for a long time,
combined with Sweden having both Europe’s highest population growth rate
Association of Public Housing and Europe’s highest level of urbanisation. Moreover, the problem has been
Companies (SABO) amplified by Sweden having the highest construction prices in the EU.
SABO, P.O. Box 474
101 29 Stockholm The public municipally owned housing companies in Sweden, together
Sweden with the Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies (SABO), have
www.sabo.se initiated and developed the concept of SABO’s Kombohus. This concept is
an extensive strategic effort being implemented nationally by 300 municipal
Contact person housing undertakings in Sweden and aimed at increasing Sweden’s
Kurt Eliasson residential construction of cost effective multi-dwelling buildings without
CEO of SABO state funding. (Currently there are no government subsidies for residential
[email protected] construction in Sweden.)
Size of organisation The municipal housing undertakings have completed three framework
>5000; procurements in respect of the concept and have managed to reduce building
people directly involved: >15 costs by 25 per cent while producing better-quality multi-dwelling buildings
through building companies being afforded an opportunity within the public
Type of sector procurement rules to compete for considerable volumes of homes erected
Economic affairs, competition, SME under framework agreements over several years. This affords significant
opportunities for improving efficiency, performance, lead times, quality and
Key words of the project logistics as well as the prospect of extensive cooperation between suppliers.
Cooperation, procurement, competition,
price-pressure, innovation, sustainable As the buildings are pre-designed and partially prefabricated, this reduces
housing, energy-performance, social the construction period while increasing the productivity of the construction
responsibility, accessibility companies. Huge interest has been shown in constructing these buildings,
far exceeding the objective of the concept. Over 80 projects are currently
underway in over 60 different municipalities. This includes over 4,000 homes
in total that have either already been built or are in the construction process. It is considered that the three procurements will provide
approximately 11,000 homes in total during the term of the contract. The multi-dwelling buildings procured may be erected by any one
of the 300 municipal housing undertakings throughout Sweden, both as individual ancillary buildings or as apartment blocks. Buildings
are procured at a fixed price and are fully completed (ready-to-occupy), so that tenants can move in immediately.
This concept building was developed by the building contractors within the margin of expenditure set in the procurement, and the
building proposals submitted have then competed against each other and been evaluated on the basis of standard and quality.
This has resulted in the buildings having very good apartment solutions, a robust and environmentally friendly choice of materials
and very low running costs. These buildings are also ranked as low-energy buildings.
Independent researchers have monitored the method of procurement and costs together with subsequent moving chains. The results
show, among other things, that housing companies operating in areas where previously it was not economically viable to build have
now been afforded an opportunity to build homes at a lower construction price. We also see that many of the people who have moved
into the new multi-dwelling buildings are older people who now have the option to move from a home that is no longer suitable to a
home that is accessible and tailored to them. This has resulted in moving chains starting in areas where no-one has built any new
homes for a long while and also in rent levels that more citizens can afford.
Another positive effect of the procurements is that the construction companies involved in the concept were able to develop
products that were so cost-effective that it has been possible to increase their volume of construction for the external market,
private property owners and institutional investors.

Green Jobs Programme
Submitted by the Biodiversity Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture,
Food and the Environment
EU Funded
The Green Jobs Programme (Programa empleaverde) is an initiative

EPSA2015224
developed by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Spanish Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Environment.
Biodiversity Foundation
Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food It is co-funded by the European Social Fund through the National
and the Environment Operational Programme on Adaptability and Employment 2007-2013.
Calle José Abascal 4
6ª planta, 28003, Madrid • 1,300,000 participants;
Spain • 2,600 green businesses or new green business lines promoted;
www.fundacion-biodiversidad.es • 270 projects implemented and €45 million mobilised.
Contact person These are some achievements which help to measure the results of the
Silvia Fernández-Campa Green Jobs Programme. They show the success of this Programme as
Coordinator well as the success of the 500 entities involved, turning an ambitious
[email protected] initiative into reality.
Size of organisation Behind each indicator there is a person. People who want to start a
25-50; new project, who work or who run a business. They are the one million
people directly involved: 6-10 three hundred thousand projects participants who give meaning to this
programme. They have found different growth opportunities related to
Type of sector sustainability and they are key figures of a greener economy.
Economic affairs, competition, SME;
Employment, labour related affairs and The Programme provides grants to projects in order to empower people
gender equality; Environment, climate and companies to exploit the business and jobs opportunities offered by
change, agriculture (incl. food safety) the sustainable use of the biodiversity and the environment.
and fishery
It is managed mainly via calls for proposals and own projects. Among
Key words of the project the own projects launched, of special relevance is the Green Business
Green, jobs, entrepreneurship, environment, Network (GBN) created to promote the start-up of green business and to
green economy, employment, European channel investment into sustainable ventures. Currently the network has
Social Fund more than 7000 members which are entrepreneurs and eco-investors.
The Green Jobs Programme has achieved significant results for people
and for sustainability. It has received numerous recognitions from different institutions and has been highlighted by the European
Commission as a best practice in the management of EU Funds. In addition, it has been selected as protagonist in Spain of the EU
campaign “EU: working for you”, an initiative to underline concrete examples of EU actions and policies that have a positive impact on
the economy and the everyday lives of citizens.
Beyond the good results obtained, it is important to note that the programme is being implemented with high guarantees in terms
of eligibility of expenditure through the application of strict management and control procedures.
The Green Jobs Programme provides useful tools for workers and entrepreneurs, helping them improve and promote employment
opportunities.
With both, the Green Jobs Programme and the Green Business Network, the Biodiversity Foundation tries to promote a new
economy: a greener and smarter economy that is already being built.

Programme for the Internationalisation of the Third Social
Sector and Social and Cooperative Economy of Catalonia
Submitted by the Catalan Business Competitiveness Support Agency (ACCIÓ)
The third social sector and the social economy have a remarkable presence
EPSA2015196
in Europe. According to the European Commission, there are 2 million
social economy enterprises (i.e. 10% of all European businesses), which
Catalan Business Competitiveness employ over 11 million paid employees (the equivalent of 6% of the working
Support Agency (ACCIÓ) population of the EU). It is also an important sector in Catalonia, which
Passeig de Gràcia, 129 accounts for 2.8% of the region’s GDP. It comprises 6,800 organisations,
08008 Barcelona 2.1 million users, 102,000 workers and 300,000 volunteers.
Spain
www.catalonia.com/en The third social sector in Catalonia has an excellent track record.
A large number of social and cooperative companies have appeared
Contact person in Catalonia over the last 30 years. Most importantly, they have been
Sandra Jiménez working in partnership with the public sector in order to provide services
Manager of Planning and Business to disadvantaged or special needs groups (e.g. children and young people
Intelligence with social difficulties, older people, people with disabilities, economically
[email protected] disadvantaged women, etc.).
Size of organisation Although these services have been provided on a local basis, the skills
100-500; and experience of the Catalan third social sector are valuable enough to
people directly involved: 1-5 be reproduced in other countries. By doing so, it can extend its services
and also transfer its knowledge and successful social intervention models
Type of sector to other regions and countries. This is the rationale behind the Programme
Economic affairs, competition, SME; for the Internationalisation of the Third Social Sector and Social and
Public health and social welfare/affairs Cooperative Economy of Catalonia, which is implemented by the Catalan
Business Competitiveness Support Agency (ACCIÓ) in partnership with
Key words of the project the Platform of the Third Social Sector of Catalonia.
Third social sector, social economy,
internationalisation, social cohesion, The programme is intended to promote the internationalisation of Catalan
empowerment, inclusive growth third social sector organisations and social enterprises in order to
strengthen their business activities and to make use of the full potential
of their knowledge and expertise in addressing societal challenges.
The programme is therefore addressed to maximising the impact of the third social sector and social economy from both an
economic and a social perspective at a local and international level.
In order to achieve the proposed objectives, the programme undertakes specific measures based on four pillars:
1. Raising public awareness and identifying third social sector organisations with potential for internationalisation.
2. Capacity-building activities to upgrade the organisation prior to initiating the process of internationalisation.
3. Advisory services ranging from support in redefining organisational business models to custom projects run through their Trade
and Investment Offices worldwide.
4. Direct action with exploratory missions in countries in which opportunities have been identified.
In conclusion, the programme tackles several issues at a time:

1. Local organisations can offer their services abroad while strengthening their position locally.
2. The experience and know-how of Catalan organisations can be transferred to other regions. The programme itself can also be
transferred.
3. Social cohesion can be reinforced (in line with the objective of inclusive growth envisaged in the Europe 2020 Strategy).
4. The Catalan economy can increase its openness.

Institutional Partners EPSA 2015
European Commission Luxembourg
Austria The Netherlands
Belgium Norway
Denmark Sweden
Italy Switzerland
124 Institutional Partners EPSA 2015

ISBN 978-90-6779-000-0
2015
European Institute of Public Administration

Institut européen d’administration publique

Public Sector As Partner For ABetter Society

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Public Sector As Partner For ABetter Society

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Public Sector As Partner For ABetter Society

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

European Public Sector Award 2015

The Public Sector as Partner

© 2015, European Institute of Public Administration.

European Institute of Public Administration,

Typeset and printed by the Publications Service, EIPA, the Netherlands

With the support of

The European Commission supports EIPA through

© 2015, European Institute of Public Administration /

Part 1: EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices 17

2. Supra-Local/Local administrative level 21

3. European/National/Regional administrative level 31

Part 2: Best Practices Catalogue 47

EPSA 2015 Statistics 48

Supra-Local/Local administrative level 54

Supra-Local/Local administrative level 56

European/National/Regional administrative level 84

European/National/Regional administrative level 86

Institutional Partners EPSA 2015 124

Supra-Local/Local administrative level

New service delivery approaches

6 List of Best Practice Projects

Sound public finance

European/National/Regional administrative level

Effective engagement by government with stakeholders

New service delivery approaches

List of Best Practice Projects 7

Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches

Sound public finance

8 List of Best Practice Projects

As Director-General of the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA),

As in previous EPSA rounds, we could again count on the financial and

Susanne Møller Nielsen

“The diversity and complementarity of the EPSA cases are characteristic

“Being on the frontline of the EPSA submission process is a privileged

List of Authors and Editors 13

“Local governments’ action nowadays is based on the real needs of citizens

14 List of Authors and Editors

Total of EPSA 2015 applications by country

10 FYR Macedonia 1 Serbia 1

Aim and structure of the publication

Against these challenges, there is

18 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015

1.1 Effective engagement by government with stakeholders

1.2 New service delivery approaches

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015 19

1.3 Innovative knowledge management and new leadership approaches

1.4 Sound public finance

20 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Context of the EPSA 2015

2.2 Effective engagement by government with stakeholders

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 21

22 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 23

24 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 25

26 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

2.4 Innovative knowledge management and leadership approaches

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 27

28 EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level

EPSA 2015 Trends & Practices / Supra-Local/Local administrative level 29