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Licensing of Hunters via the "Multibanco" ATM network
National Forest Authority (Autoridade Florestal Nacional)
Portugal

The Problem

The legal regimen of the hunting in Portugal limits the exercise of the hunting act to citizens possessing a set of documents, including the hunting licence, and determines that these can only be emitted to the bearers of valid hunting permit and that its emission is subjected to the payment of a tax.

Counting on about 300.000 potentials hunters (citizens with hunting permit) and despite only about 50% of them hunt each season), the emission of annual licenses represents a huge effort to the State administration, in terms of licensing and controling of the regularity of the emitted licenses and revenues.

The ancient process was based in the centralized impression of the documents, its distribution to several entities (Forest Service [NFA], regional and municipal public authorities and private entities - hunting associations) that participated in the licensing procedures and, finally, the collection of duplicates and other control documents, all this made nationwide (Portuguese mainland and atlantic islands).

This procedure was totally outdated in relation to the new existing technologies, and was very demanding regarding not only human resources, but also the need to assure legal guarantee of the licensing. It was a very inneficient process, difficult to implement due to frequent legislative modifications.

The main motivations for change where the following:

- The reduction of human and financing resources involved, with particular attention to the reduction of annual consumption in paper and fuel generated by the system (and related CO2 emissions);
- The difficulty of the State Administration (NFA) in assuring an effective fiscalization on the number and regularity of the emitted licenses;
- The difficulty of the State Administration in having updated information on the number of emitted licenses (on average it needed 1 year to obtain the complet data), as well as access to revenues generated by the licensing process (in some cases the delays were up to 8 months).

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Strong increase in the easiness of access to the service by the citizen (more than 13,000 points of licensing distributed all over the country, working 24 hours a day and 7 days a week);
- A faster service to the citizen;
- Guarantee of legal security in the emission of the licenses;
- Improvement in the exchange of information and in the sharing of completely digitized information;
- Emission of licenses in a fully computerized system and without any necessity of human resources and material;
- Reduction of the costs of emission of licenses;
- Reduction in the time of collection of the incomes of the State administration

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The decision to take forward this project was of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries (Decree No. 1509/2007 of 26 November) after a proposal by the NFA.

The National Forest Authority was in charge of operationalizing the project. The SIBS (Interbank Services Company) was contracted to develop the licensing service through a network of boxes "ATM". This was done through a bank, the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), as well as through a consultant company TO-BE - Consultants and Systems Information Technologies Ltd, for the development of the backoffice.

In short, they were involved in project implementation:
- Secretary of State for Rural Development and Forestry;
- AFN;
- SIBS;
- CGD.
- TO-BE.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
There was the need to change the procedure for issuing annual hunting licenses.The strategy developed was based, as primary objective, to reduce the emiting entities and to have an easy to acess mechanism for citizens..

The requesites defined included: - a mechanism already inplace and with recognized safety procedures
- an easy to access mechanism, wide geographical distribution, preferably covering the whole country;
- fast mechanism, with user-frindly interface already used by the general public.

After evaluating existing resources, it became clear that the electronic mechanism that best suited the requirements previously established was the "ATM" network system ATM-network universal banking services in Portugal, developed by SIBS.

That system was found extremely appropriate to the objectives to be achieved, with respect to the creation of a service easy and intuitive to be use by citizens, simplifying the whole process and ensuring a sound relationship between citizens and public administration more comfortable, without however , neglecting the legality and security required by the permit in question and the reduction of manpower involved in the process and material resources.
Apart from a mechanism that would meet those requirements, was also critical to ensure the development of a backoffice system that allows the exchange of information between the AFN and SIBS, managing both the information to send to AFN as well as the information AFN should provide the system with (which was developed by To-BE)

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Key steps in developing the project and its chronology:
- Negotiation of banking services, with CGD, for development by SIBS special service for the licensing of hunters through ATM network - This negotiation took place between December 2007 and April 2008, having been concluded with conclusion of contracts for the provision of services;
- Development by SIBS, special licensing service between March 2008 and May 25 of that year, with validation by the AFN, the different phases of the service;
- Development of the TO-BEof the software interface for the backoffice, between March 2008 and May 25 of that year;
- Tests of the special service licensing of hunters in ATM and backoffice, between 26 and 31 May 2008;
- June 1, 2008 - entry into operation of the service to the public of licensing through ATM

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The issuance of annual hunting licenses requires that the person holds a valid hunter permit.
It is through the card number of the hunter that the ATM system recognizes the legitimacy of its holder to obtain a hunting license. Since the hunters' permit also have an expiring date, this information must be updated daily and transmitted by the AFN to SIBS.
Based on this fact, one of the obstacles encountered in implementing the project was the quality of data on some hunters' registration, misclassified as falling in the wake of infringement proceedings, which did not allow their holders to obtain a hunting license in the system.
To overcome the problem, there was the need to revise the attributes of hunters who had a permit expired by reason of law infringement.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Financial resources used:
- Cost of developing the special service of licensing hunters through a network of ATM, by SIBS - € 26,900.00;
- Monthly service SIBS - 1.000,00 € / month (plus per transaction, a fixed value of 0.22 € and a variable 0.9% of the transaction);
- Cost of application development backoffice - € 22,500.00

Human Resources of the AFN used in the development and implementation of the project:
- a Senior Officer, deployed to 20% in the period from December 2007 to late February 2008;
1 Senior technician, deployed to 80% in the period between March 1 and June 1, 2008;
- a computer expert, deployed to 80% in the period between April 1 and June 1, 2008;

Resource Materials used in project implementation:
- a Web server;
- 1 server SQLserver

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The initiative is sustainable and the project has enormous potential to replicate other types of permits issued by the Government. The proof is
the fact that only three months after this project was under implementation, a parallel system for issuing licenses to fish in inland waters was also implemented through the network of ATM cash machines.

Note that in this case too, the acceptance / accession by the users was very high (about 85% of fishing licenses are issued through the network of ATM)

In addition to the ttransfarable capacity, the project also allows the sharing of information with law enforcement authorities responsible for policing and enforcement of hunting, thereby increasing its efficiency in monitoring this activity

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
With regard to the impacts of the initiative we should mention the following:
- Over 80% of permits are issued without any use of human resources;
- The time for receiving the revenue from the previous system administration reached, for some entities involved in the issue, eight months, and now it became automatic and simoultanious;
- The time for getting information of licensing data (number of licenses issued) that lasted an average of one year, it has also been automatic and instantaneous;
- The cost of licensing issuing has suffered a reduction of around 47% by each hunter;
- Hunters now have a service for 365 days a year and the 24 hours each day.

The main lessons learned from this project are:

- Administrative simplification and the development of technological solutions in the relationship between public administration aloows to reduce costs and and ensures the collection of taxes by the Administration;
- Comfort, convenience and security that these technological solutions bring to the work done by the administration increases citizens confidence in public services;
- Technological innovation contributes significantly to the maintenance and growth of traditional activities like hunting, so ingrained in the culture.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   National Forest Authority (Autoridade Florestal Nacional)
Institution Type:   Public Agency  
Contact Person:   AMANDIO TORRES
Title:   PRESIDENT  
Telephone/ Fax:   00 351 213124801
Institution's / Project's Website:   00 351 213124988
E-mail:   amandio.torres@afn.min-agricultura.pt  
Address:   AV. JOÃO CRISÓSTOMO, 26-28
Postal Code:   1069-040
City:   LISBOA
State/Province:  
Country:   Portugal

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