United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Portuguese government gives social grants to higher education students since 1993 but this initiative was only implemented after 2007 to reduce the time of analysis and response to a social grant application, creating a web-based system that supports the analysis of the Higher Education social grants application that is performed by Higher Education student’s all over the country.
Before the initiative, when a student needed to apply to a social grant, he had to apply at his higher education institution, completing a paper form, delivering almost 36 documents (ID copy of all family members, IRS copy, copy of Social Security card of all family members, etc.). Then, each one of the Portuguese higher education institutions (HEI) analyzed the application during a period of 2/3 months, at least, during which time the HEI was checking all the documents and information that were delivered and calculating the amount of the social grant.
The grant was pay to the students 3 to 6 months after the initial application and the moment of payment was different all over the country, depending on the efficiency of the HEI services.
The major problem was to create a solution that could respond quickly to all the grants application without endanger the necessary control and preventing fraud on the applications.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
After the development of this initiative, the application procedure was highly simplified, the time of analyzes largely reduced, and it was possible to reduce costs with human resources, to avoid human errors and to share public resources. This new service allows the submission of the application, the analysis by the Higher Education Institutions Social Services in shared software and performs all the connections with Social Security Services and Tax Services to confirm that the candidate is a student with economical difficulties. This confirmation requires the permanent link of three Public Services (DGES, DGITA and ISS), which is an outstanding innovation in the Portuguese Public Administration procedures (the Platform was the first service of interaction between three Public Services). The new system allowed great improvements, some of which follows: a) The number of documents delivered by the student was reduced in 92% (previously the system required 36 documents and now only requires 3 documents); b) The time spent by the HEI social services helping the students to fill in the application was reduced in 100% (before the services spent 94 minutes per student and now there is no time spent in this service); c) The administrative cost of each application was reduced in 21%; d) The unitary cost of each social assistant was reduced in 70%; e) The average time of analyses was reduced in 75 % (before the average time of analyses was 4 months. Now it takes 1 month, maximum). We can also reefer the financial benefits: overall estimated reduction of 1.750M€ in a four year period regarding the following cost categories: i. Reduced contract costs for each higher education institution to develop their own social grant system; ii. Paper handling costs (transportation, capturing and archiving) reduced from 1.5M paper documents; iii. Required headcount (FTE) to analyze the paper based grant applications. The main benefit is thus getting an easier and faster process that reduces error and fraud, providing more social help funds available to the students who need it, creating a major innovation on the Portuguese public administration and connecting several public services. The main goal of the initiative was to improve effectiveness to the service used by the citizen and it was successfully achieved.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The solution was proposed by the General Directorate for Higher Education (DGES) that was the responsible for its technical implementation. The major stakeholders were three governmental agencies: AMA - Agency for Administrative Modernization, DGITA - Directorate General for Information, Technology and Support Services Tax and Customs and the ISS - Social Security Institute. Other public and private stakeholders were also involved, including 101 Higher Education Institutions (18 public + 83 private).

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.
The mains objectives of the initiative were: a. To promote interoperability between services by reducing costs in processing information in different public services. This was established b. To simplify the grant application process to the students; c. To ensure fairness in the treatment process for all candidates for the social grant; d. To lower administrative costs; All the objectives and strategies were established by the General Directorate for Higher Education and were implemented by this governmental agency. The strategy followed by DGES to implement the initiative was begun in 2006 and was applied in 2007 for the Private Higher Education, obtaining an online application rate of 38% that year. In 2008, emphasis was given to the coverage of online services related to the social grant applications, seeking to cover a percentage of applications closer to the universe of candidates. Following the developments and improvements implemented in 2008, there was an online application rate of 99.48%. In 2009, all applications were made online. In parallel, the developed platform was made available to Public Higher Education Institutions, and six joined a pilot phase, involving 3210 applicants for social grants. In 2009 it has evolved to the interoperability of public services involved in the process of awarding the grants, including the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, facilitating access to information on time and inforcing its reliability and transparency, striving to improve and streamline the social benefits. The Interoperability Platform, which became a reality in 2009, is an innovative tool that streamlines the process of awarding social grants to Higher Education in close coordination with the departments of the Ministries of Finance and Social Security. It is the precursor of a new reality at both administrative and social levels, leading the citizen to a simplified and immediate contact with the services, without intermediaries or bureaucratic procedures, and making it possible to provide valuable answers on time.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
To implement the initiative and achieve the proposed goals, the three years strategy was developed in the following steps: i. (2006) DGES worked with a specialized network of partners, who helped design and develop the solution, using market mechanisms and initiatives under development for greater efficiency and synergies. In this phase, it was very important the interaction with all stakeholders in the construction and evolution of the platform; ii. (2007) the initiative was matured in a smaller scope with private higher education institutions before going mainstreamed with public institutions. iii. (2008) the project was integrated in the SIMPLEX program (a program of simplification measures - M084) and the minister’s cabinet assured the correct political scope with their peers. Being integrated in this program, the government made new laws to enable the interoperability between services and to permit to cross-checking financial, tax and social data. iv. 2008 - On the fourth phase, the initiative was delivered to 107 public and private institutions and was used by 21.790 students; v. Nowadays, the initiative is being used by 101 public and private institutions and is being used by 62.104 students

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
It was a difficult and slow process to negotiate a consensual solution between DGES and institutional social services (that analyze the social grant applications), key stakeholders and students who wanted a very simplified approach. Currently the whole social grant process was redesigned without losing control over the process, although it required time for all parties to cement knowledge and understand the pitfalls of each interaction process - overall it took 4 interactions/years to reach the current optimized stage. The automatic data interaction between government bureaus (interoperability) was also a very challenging process, one which required 2 years to overcome cultural and legal barriers and the alignment of political agendas. This challenge was addressed by aligning this initiative with the SIMPLEX program, bringing both political and public pressure over the matter and involving key stakeholder agencies onto the same negotiating table. And finally the technological hurdles proved challenging both from a security and performance standpoint. As the solution become more widely available, more intrusion attempts were detected along with more pressure to release new functionalities which brought some instability during the initial stages. This was overcome by implementing stricter new development processes with longer cycles for major releases to be fully tested in beta environments. DGES overcome the first obstacle by inviting into the project major stakeholders such as AMA, DGITA and Social Security in order to defuse possible conflict of interest situations; Technological obstacles were overcome by having specialized quality assurance contractors auditing and evaluating information security; The final obstacle was overcome by involving key institutions that were using the platform and using a systematic quality review approached with students.

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
The total initiative cost is estimated at 1M€ over the 4 year period, regarding the following cost categories: information security, software licensing, design and application development. The human resources were composed in DGES by 10 people.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Yes, the initiative is fully sustainable and transferable, being one of the first initiatives in Portugal using interoperability between public services and was seen as a reference initiative in Simplex 2009. The initiative launched the use of interoperability between the Portuguese public services and after the success of the initiative other governmental agencies began to use similar solutions based on the same platform. Nowadays, DGES is working to use this solution to promote interoperability in other fields of the administration (such as to request student passes).

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The initiative led the way to the concept of share of resources and information on the Portuguese public administration and co-production with other government agencies, institutions, and students was probably one of the most important key success factors for it provided credibility, a consensual approach and an immediate buy in from the overall community. The initiative made the whole social grant process available to more students, both from a knowledge perspective (as students are more aware and can easily fill an online request form and understand what kind of financial support they are entitled to) and from an accessibility perspective, as previously it was a huge hurdle for students with mobility disabilities to gather all the required documentation from several government bureaus. Also by releasing social workers from back office operations into a more personal contact with applicants, this initiative has also allowed a more personal support to potential students who do not have a frequent access to internet (older individuals or those with a very low economic income) or students with less time to apply (such as single mothers). The major lessons learned were: - Public Administration must share resources to release more workers from back office operations into a more personal contact with citizens; - The cross checking of information allows a quick answer to the requests of students and creates more conditions to find fraud on the applications; With this initiative, DGES get Level 5 / 5 of sophistication of online services in the European Union; get the certification to ISO 9001:2008 and was nominated for three prize categories of 2010 Deloitte Good Practices Award (Citizen services, Citizen reducing costs, Cooperation).


Institution Name:		General Directorate for Higher Education
Institution Type:		Public Agency
Contact Person:		Cristina Jacinto
Title:		Sub-Director General
Telephone/ Fax:		00 351 213 126 050 / 5
Institution's / Project's Website:		00 351 213 126 051
E-mail:		cristina.jacinto@dges.mctes.pt
Address:		Av. Duque d'Ávila, 137
Postal Code:		1069-016 Lisboa
City:		Lisbon
State/Province:
Country:		Portugal

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information