United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Simplex Program is Portugal’s national administrative and legislative program towards the reduction of administrative burdens on businesses as well as citizens. It enjoys strong political support at the highest level since it is under the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister. It is based on annual action plans which are redefined from one year to the next. The Simplex Program is being extended to the municipalities (Simplex Autárquico Program) in order to promote co-operation and coordination across levels of government since 2008.

The Simplex Program is designed to reduce bureaucracy, increase the State transparency and the Public Administration’s efficiency as well as to improve people’s relationship with public departments. The Simplex Program exists since 2006 and every year new simplification initiatives/measures are presented by all public bodies. Until now more than 600 simplification measures were successfully implemented.

But how Simplex works? In the first edition, back in 1996, the Simplex Program was completely made by the officials in the public bodies. Each public body pointed reform procedures in modernisation fields to be developed in the following year. Those objectives became public since they were placed in the annual edition of the Simplex Programme. The decentralized construction of a national program was already a good sign of openness in policy making processes.

However, in the first year, there was no public participation, contribution or feedback. This fact brought some difficulties to the Public Administration in promoting change and to get instant positive results. It was seen with distrust and as a political flagship.

At this first year, there was also the usual resistance in accepting the change by citizens, business and civil servants. The simplification movement was new in Portugal and it wasn’t immediately accepted by all. Only in the years after, by seeing the results impact and by participating in the all process of simplification, people started to recognize the advantages of the Simplex Program.

On the other hand it must be taken into account the resistance of public officials in recognizing the value and importance of the citizen’s opinion. Even though officials should have knowledge of all matters of their institution, citizens have a different perspective, as a consumer or as a client and are the need of these that must be fulfilled. This was a vision that didn’t matter to several public decision makers and, therefore, it was disrespected and disregarded. The Public Administration is, just now learning how to work without silos and how to share information and also to accept and value to public opinion in how to be more efficient.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The Public Consultation and the Simplex Idea were, in fact, a solution to the difficulties above described. In the Public Consultation, all initiatives identified by public bodies to the next year are put online and citizens have a month to comment, vote or suggest different initiatives. The Public Consultation is being carried out since 2007 and the importance of the process is most recognized by citizens and public bodies. Even though in the first and second years many contributions were actually questions about how to solve personal problems, most were real proposals in how could we be doing things in public services. Sometimes, the comments or proposals just pointed out the problems felt, but this is more than enough for us to analyze de issue and identify a simplification of the process. Most of the contributions, mainly in the recent editions of the Public Consultation are truly relevant and demonstrate a deep analysis made by citizens. Not only the statistics reveal the growth of the involvement with the Simplex Program but also the relevance of the content is proving this influence in policy-making. In 2007, 271 suggestions were made, in 2008 were 515 and in 2009 were received more than 630. All the proposals are sent to a representative official of each ministry – Mr. or Mrs. Simplex - and many of them are accepted and included in the Program. All of them receive an answer explaining why the initiative isn’t possible or how it is already being improved. The feedback on government services and past initiatives are also important for Government because it draws attention to new Simplex initiatives. By being involved and receiving an answer, people enhance responsiveness of government to the demands and needs of citizens as well as feel part of the solution to the problem. This is a Government networking in policy-making that is increasingly being built. The Simplex Idea is a challenge for civil servants where an individual or a team proposes an initiative and at the end citizens’ vote for the three best projects. There is always an award for the three best ideas and these are also included in that edition of the Simplex Program. This challenge has been motivating all civil servants to identify themselves with the Program and to feel responsible for the efficiency of their initiatives and services. People, departments and public bodies are now cooperating more to have an effective policymaking. In the matter of impact measurement, we quantify the proposals, votes, discussions and the participation is growing every year (2007 – 271, 2008 – 515 and 2009 - 630) in the Public Consultation. Regarding the Simplex Idea, more than 600 ideas were submitted and appreciated in the last year. In both consultation processes not only the number of participants has grown but also the quality of the proposals. This is a change of the organizational culture because now citizens can identify the needs, suggest the solutions and the way of doing and, at the end, they will provide the feedback.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Government recognizes that these were the first steps of crowdsourcing in the Portuguese Public Administration. Besides the innovative and recent concept, crowdsourcing is now a powerful method to, though an open call, perform or design task in a community or network. In the private sector this is already spreading and being considered a best practice, so the Portuguese Prime-Minister is supporting the Agency for the Public Services Reform, by the direct supervision of the Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization, in developing the concept and to implement a technological platform that will integrate all the social networks being now used to support the Public Consultation, Simplex Idea and also the Facebook profile and the weblog. In these past years of the Simplex Program, we have used non-integrated open software platforms to assure the Public Consultation and Simplex Idea. But at the moment we are selecting a technological platform of the market because the social networks are growing every day and the crowdsourcing functionalities are, probably, at an early stage of development and we want to explore every possibility of the resource. The Simplex unit is a small team project of the Agency for the Public Services Reform, supported by the Board and the Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization, that has several representatives at each Ministry and several Municipalities – Mr. and Mrs. Simplex. They are more than 200 civil servants working in the Simplex network.

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 Agency for the Public Services Reform, supervised by the Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization, has been establishing the objectives and strategies along with the ones of the Simplex Program and the Administrative Burdens Reduction for businesses evaluation plan. The prime objective of these participation mechanisms are the ones of public services co-production: effective policy-making, improve government trust, efficiency of public services and social involvement. We aim to make citizens and businesses life better with the cooperation of all sectors and citizens. As an objective to this year of 2011, the Simplex team pretends, with the new technological platform, to launch a broad evaluation of the past Simplex initiatives as well as to launch new forums regarding the burdensome public services for businesses. Besides these, a board of experts from private sector, public services and citizens will be created to comment the suggestions made by the community of participants. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and our Idea Market will be the main social networks to be developed.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
2006: • 1st. Edition of Simplex Program 2007: • 2nd. Edition of Simplex Program • 1st. Public Consultation – 271 comments and proposals 2008 • 3rd Edition of Simplex Program • 2nd Public Consultation – 515 comments and proposals 2009 • 4th. Edition of Simplex Program • 3rd Public Consultation – 630 comments and proposals • 1st. Simplex Idea Award – 313 initiatives proposed • Simplex webblog 2010 • 5th. Edition of Simplex Program • 4rd Public Consultation – 343 project proposals • 1st. Simplex Idea Award – 600 initiatives proposed, more than 12.000 votes • Facebook profile Future • Development of a platform that integrates all channels and social networks to improve the backoffice work and to allow a better management of all comments, votes and suggestions

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
One of the major problems is the citizens’ involvement, because it is in fact a public administrations initiative and people tend to distrust it. Many users mix together political parties vision and opinion with the public services delivery. Therefore they refuse to participate in this kind of projects. Only by showing the results and answering to their questions and comments we can prove that their opinions and proposals are important. Aside from the direct interaction, this obstacle can be overcome by publicizing results, statistic and, manly, first-person testimonies. Other obstacle is the need to break the silos in public administration and the cultural change that crowdsourcing implies. Officials are not used to pay enough attentions to the citizens proposal or needs, because they tend to believe that they know what these need are. This obstacle is very hard to overcome and puts in question all the effort made to overcome the first problem. Officials have to invest more time in these tasks, talk and exchange ideas with the public so that experiences and initiatives may be enriched. The last and less problematic obstacle regards the internal team of the Agency for the Public Services Reform. The lack of resources puts, sometimes, at risk the dynamics between citizens and the public services through these platforms and social networks. This can be solved by reinforcement of the team and also by the crowdsourcing itself in the way that some management task can be also performed by the users.

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
So far there is no technological platform that assures the full integration and all social network and blog are free, there is no technical investment made. In the near future, by acquiring a crowdsourcing platform this scenario will change. Regarding the financial and human resources costs, it must be taken into account that all the management is being done by a human resource from the simplex team and a member of the Board of the Agency for the Public Services Reform. The design and layouts were all made by another internal resource of the Agency. The only cost of the project is the hours spent fully and partially by these 3 human resources. The Simplex Idea Awards are offered by a Company that every year is invited to participate as a jury of the challenge. Until now both companies in each year were from the ICT sector.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The project itself is sustainable since no financial investment was so far needed. Besides, the Public Consultation and Simplex Idea are national initiatives with a broad social impact so it can be easily adopted. Every public body, in Portugal or in any other country, may import the model of these participation processes as it is. Only the investment of time and the high level involvement must be assured. The citizen’s reaction and impulse to participation may be different from country to country because of the cultural and social context. In Portugal, public administration initiatives are seen with distrust and are, most of the time, seen as a political statement instead as a modernization effort. Therefore is it harder to motivate the participation of all sectors of the society. We hope that in the next year, centrally or not, the Simplex Program for Municipalities may also be submitting all ideas and initiatives to a public consultation and many other public institutes follow the example.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The major impact is the relation established between the citizens and Public Administration, as well as between civil servants and officials. The gain of trust and support is very important for the policy-makers that can work effectively towards a better understanding of the problems and needs of citizens and businesses. The efficiency of public services has been also influenced by these participation mechanisms because civil servants are now part of the solution and not part of the problem. This cultural change is very recent and only the first results are to be seen. At the end, the way of doing things may be changing with all these mechanisms because people tend to ask for citizens opinions and to involve them in the solution of the problem. Every people/citizen/user/civil servant matters to the Government networking. Regarding the lessons learned, it must be pointed out the lack of resources and publicity that constrained the first steps. Co-production of services and crowdsourcing are new concepts to all so there must be a high level support to the initiatives and to answer to all comments, votes and proposals. To gain the trust of all intervenients is a huge task that must be granted at the first moment to assure the success of the project.


Institution Name:		Agency for the Public Services Reform
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Gonçalo Caseiro
Title:		Member of the Board
Telephone/ Fax:		+351 21 7231210
Institution's / Project's Website:		+351 21 7231255
E-mail:		goncalo.caseiro@ama.pt
Address:		Rua Abranches Ferrão, nº. 10 3ºG
Postal Code:		1600-001
City:		Lisbon
State/Province:		Lisbon
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