United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Austrian public administration has a longstanding reputation for being intensely engaged in e-government. Lastly, these consistent efforts were recognised in the outcome of the EU-wide e-government benchmark in 2006 where Austria came in first.

Decisive in this outstanding position is the close and exemplary cooperation between the federal government, provinces, municipalities, towns, and the private sector. Already in 2003, the contents of the so called “E-Government Offensive” were laid down in the government program.
In the interest of all citizens and entrepreneurs the aim was to rapidly develop a modern and service orientated public administration. In the last two years, a total of 100 projects were successfully realized. Furthermore, great efforts are undertaken to offer qualitative high-grade, efficient, low-cost, and secure administrative services within the frame of the federal government’s E-Government Offensive.

The eLaw project initiated by the Austrian Federal Government in 2001 allows a continuous electronic production channel from the drafting of legislation through to its publication in an authentic form on the internet (www.ris.bka.gv.at). The drafting process is shown without any interruptions and review drafts and government submissions are displayed on the Internet. A process-control workflow and the use of document templates support the work of the users.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The Federal Chancellery is one of the first public authorities in Europe which has implemented a complete digital law making system. The system - called "eLaw” (Electronic law making processes) - allows the electronic involvement of all institutional stakeholders and interested parties during a law making process. It plays a vital role through the life cycle of a legislative act comprehending all stages of law making from the very beginning of the first draft to online publication of authenticated law texts (e.g. laws, regulations, treaties). The electronic law making system represents a fundamental cultural change. The legally authentic version of an Act is no longer paper based, but the electronically signed publication on the internet. The electronic signing of the legal texts warrants their authenticity and completeness. All Austrian laws are promulgated via internet and may be accessed free of charge. eLaw supports the following types of bills: + Federal law + Regulation by minister + Regulation by cabinet + Governmental announcement + International treaty The entire law making process was planned and is realized as a whole, allowing a frictionless transmission of data files of from one organization to the next without any media disruption; parallel processing by several organizations at once was made possible. The main aims of the project are: + Continuous electronic support of legislation + Error prevention by elimination of duplicates + Recycling of data + Easier administration of different versions of documents + Implementation of a uniform layout + Support for legislative bodies + Official and authentic publication in electronic form only The legislative process is split into different sub-processes of a workflow. The main different procedures of the workflow are: + Preparation of a bill + Evaluation procedure + Presentation to the Council of Ministers + Government bill + Process in parliament (independent system) + Decision of Parliament + Authentication of the Act by the Federal President and counter-signature by the Federal Chancellor + Official electronic promulgation on the Austrian Legal Information System (RIS, www.bka.gv.at) In a database, called a document pool, all relevant documents are stored and can be easily accessed. The necessary metadata for documentation and searching has to be recorded also. In the parliament an autonomous IT-system is used. Every bill has to be transferred from the Federal Chancellery (BKA) to parliament and - after parliament’s decision - back to BKA. This transfer is facilitated by an open, XML-based interface and a secure connection. Following the parliamentary decision, the bill is further processed in the eLaw system and - in case of successful completion – promulgated on the Austrian Legal Information System. Use of the eLaw system is restricted to civil servants of the Federal ministries only. However, the general public has access to the draft bills, the government bills and to the Austrian Legal Information System free of charge.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
2001 Start of a working group in the Federal Chancellery. All participants were representatives either of the Federal Chancellery (IT-Department, Constitutional Service and the Council of Ministers Service) or the Parliament. 2002, 2003 Software development Prototype of eLaw 2003 Trial operation 2004 eLaw became operational, ending the age of printed law promulgations for good

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.
a) Background The project started in May 2001. A list of necessary requirements was drawn up by the Federal Chancellery facilitating the coordination process with public administrations involved. The project was coordinated by the Federal Chancellery responsible for the implementation together with private companies. The first pilot started in March 2002 involving six ministries. After a training period of the future users, the functionality and usability of the system were first put to test operation and finally to real time operation. The eLaw workflow software includes: + web based user interface + handling of processes spanning several organizations + XML-based data transfer + conversion into several data formats (e.g. PDF) + digital signature of the final version (Federal Law Gazette) The creation of electronic texts within the law making process follows the layout guidelines of the Constitutional Service. Based on these guidelines, MS WinWord-based templates were developed which facilitate the structuring of texts and the layout design for the Federal Ministries. The first stage of eLaw was finalized mid 2002. At this stage it was possible to process a legislative bill fully electronically from its first draft to the (then still) paper-based publication of the Federal Law Gazette. The second stage of eLaw was dedicated to the integration of the electronic signature into the process in order to be able to promulgate authentic law electronically on the internet and to finally abandon the paper-based promulgation of laws. The system is operational since the beginning of 2004.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In all 12 Austrian ministries, Microsoft Office products are a main part of their daily work. Therefore, for the creation of the electronic law texts MS WinWord (version 97 and higher), supported by templates and macros, is used. This ensures a uniform layout based on legislative guidelines. The quality is checked by macro functions which also allow a more comfortable editing of the legal texts. + Auto format recognition + eLaw conformity check (for conversion to XML) + Table of contents generation + Text comparison The workflow of electronic law making depends on the type of the legal source. All ministries have to use the same workflow. The main purpose of eLaw was to enhance the G2C service. Nowadays, draft bills, government bills and the Federal Law Gazettes are stored and made accessible to the general pubic free of charge via internet. Hence, it is possible also for people not having been directly involved into the law making process, to get a deep insight into the genesis and future amendments of any law which improves transparency of the law making process considerably. The eLaw system is also very profitable for the administration in Austria itself because all participants use one and same system for the Electronic File System and the eLaw System. The electronic internet version of the Federal Law Gazettes counts about 95.000 accesses per month. Promulgating laws electronically also saves a lot of printing costs (about EUR 400.000 per year).

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
In spring 1999 a political initiative was launched, seeking for possibilities to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The traditional way of paper-based legislation is expensive so the basic idea was to provide an electronic workflow comprising the draft bill up to the e-Publication in an online version of the Federal Law Gazette. The simplification and speeding up of law making processes between the public administration, the parliament and the public were the core tasks. The goal was to increase the efficiency and transparency of the law making process while simultaneously the duration and costs should be reduced. This goal was achieved when eLaw became fully operational.

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
In the past, the ministries had no electronic workflow which supports their work to create legal texts. The process of changes was very complicated and needed a long time. The simplification and speeding up of law making processes was one of the main goals. It was a great challenge to train all the civil servants and to get the new kind of work across to the participants, but today, they have no serious problems to handle the eLaw system. Also changes in the Parliament process have to be done. The Parliament has an independent IT-system and there is a data exchange between the Federal Chancellery and the Parliament by use of an XML interface and a secure connection.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Based on the web-based software for Electronic Files ("ELAK-System") which is used in all federal ministries, the requirements for the eLaw project were developed. The eLaw workflow is a centralized system where no specialized client software is needed and no additional licence fee has to be paid. Easy configuration allows role-based access and revocation of access rights. The XML standard is used to exchange data and support process management between different organizations. The Online Application Modules (MOA) developed by the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Ministry of Finance are components for the use of electronic signature. The authentic version of the Federal Law Gazette is electronically signed to warrant authenticity and completeness. The creation of electronic texts within the law making process is based on MS WinWord and supported by macros and templates. The usage of these macros is decentralized.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
First of all, it was necessary that the Austrian ministries support the new way of creation and publication of Federal Law Gazettes. Therefore, a formal decision of the Council of Ministers was required, which was made in June 2001. This decision was the formal start of the project. Employees of the Federal Chancellery informed all departments of the ministries who are competent to create drafts of legal texts. So there was a very intensive contact between the Federal Chancellery, who was and is responsible for the co-ordination and development of the eLaw project, and the other ministries. One of the difficulties was that in former times the lawyers in the ministries were not responsible for the layout of a Federal Law Gazette; their field of responsibility was only the content. When they had finished their texts, a publishing company produced the layout. With the start of eLaw the responsibilities of the in-house legal experts changed. They are now responsible for the content and the layout as well; there is no more publishing company available. Each document has to follow the layout guidelines of the Executive Office for Constitutional Matters of the Federal Chancellery. Based on these guidelines macros and templates have been developed to support the users. A well structured document is necessary for the conversion to XML and the electronic signature. It was necessary to train all participants. There were two different training sessions, one session for explanation and training of the workflow and in the other for the use of macros and templates. About 300 people were trained by private companies. For the legal authenticity of electronic promulgation an amendment of the Austrian Federal Constitution, which has required a two-thirds majority in the first (“Nationalrat”) and second chamber (“Bundesrat”) of the Austrian Parliament, was necessary. In October 2003 the “Nationalrat” adopted this bill (amendment of article 49 of the Federal Constitutional Act and amendment of the Federal Act on the Federal Law Gazette, Federal Law Gazette I No. 100/2003 of 21st November 2003). Nowadays all Austrian ministries use the eLaw system and there are no serious problems. However, it is still necessary to offer additional trainings. As of 1st November 2006 there are more than 2.400 issues of the Federal Law Gazettes published on the Internet.


Institution Name:		Federal Chancellery of Austria
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Brigitte Barotanyi
Title:		Head of software development
Telephone/ Fax:		+43 1 53115-4222
Institution's / Project's Website:		+43 1 53109-4222
E-mail:		brigitte.barotanyi@bka.gv.at
Address:		Ballhausplatz 2
Postal Code:		1014
City:		Vienna
State/Province:		-
Country:		Austria

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