United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

HITRO.hr Program is one of the strategic tasks assigned by the Croatian Government to the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia. The main responsibility of the Office is coordination, implementation and monitoring of the e-Croatia 2007 Program, a program with an aim of developing Croatia into an information society. HITRO.hr is a priority within this program, aiming to reform public administration through simplification of administrative procedures, increase of efficiency and effectiveness, reduction of administrative burdens and innovative use of ICTs. The Office also takes active part in international cooperation on the development of Information Society, through regional eSouthEastern Europe Initiative of the Stability Pact, EU i2010 Initiative, and the implementation of UN WSIS action lines. Exchange of best practices and lessons learned through these activities have helped us in creating our national strategy.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
“One Stop Shop” or “HITRO.hr” Program of the Croatian Government coordinated by the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia is a comprehensive program aimed at transforming public administration into an efficient and effective service for citizens and businesses. It establishes a common strategic, operative and methodological framework for transformation of public services through legal, institutional and procedural change, efficient use of ICTs and horizontal coordination across administrative silos. Its objectives are to provide better quality of service at a single point of access; increase efficiency and effectiveness of public administration, provide users a variety of communication channels and reduce administrative burden. These objectives are achieved through organization of HITRO.hr offices for face-to-face communication with public administration in all counties, introduction of eGovernment services, provision of a secure private network infrastructure for public administration (HITRONet), and a “regulatory guillotine” or HITRORez project for eliminating unnecessary regulation. The first HITRO.hr service for registering a company or a craft successfully tested the concept introducing changes in two laws, a new bylaw, and involving seven institutions. Number of steps for company registration was reduced from 10 to 3, and the duration of the procedure from an average of 40 days to between three and five days. Procedure for registration of a craft now takes up to three days. At the national level 30% of all companies and crafts are registered through HITRO.hr offices, and in some counties this proportion runs above 50%. In addition to face-to-face services at HITRO.hr offices, eGovernment services are also being introduced. Online services introduced in 2005 and 2006 include on-line filing of value added tax return forms (eVAT), on-line registration and change of data for an employee at the obligatory pension fund (ePension) and at the Central Registry of Insured Persons (eREGOS), on-line registration of crews on chartered yachts (eCrew), and on-line access to a series of national registries (land registry, cadastre, registry of companies, crafts, voters etc.). Studies of on-line availability of public administration services using the EU methodology and benchmarking indicators showed an increase in online availability of services for businesses from 5.3% in 2004 to 29.8% in 2005, and for citizens from 3.4% in 2004 to 38.2% in 2005. The World Bank report “Doing Business in 2007” ranks Croatia as the 7th within the Top-10 reformers list. UNCTAD’s “World Investment Report” for 2006 ranks Croatia among the group of countries that have a big investment potential, explicitly mentioning HITRO.hr project as a measure that facilitates investments into the country. EU’s “Lisbon Review 2006” ranks Croatia the first among the six potential member countries. Finally, according to the recent World Economic Forum report Croatia’s ranking on Global Competitiveness Index improved by 13 positions in the last year.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
December, 2003 – The Government of Croatia adopts e-Croatia 2007 Program, Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia is formed and tasked with its implementation June, 2004 – Operational plan for the implementation of e-Croatia 2007 Program for 2004 adopted December, 2004 – The Strategy of the One-Stop-Shop Programme (HITRO.hr) adopted March, 2005 – National Program on Information Security in the Republic of Croatia adopted April, 2005 – changes in the Law on Financial Agency enable establishing of nation-wide HITRO.hr offices with the Agency; changes in the Law on Registry of Companies May, 2005 – opening of the first HITRO.hr office; online access to Land Registry made available November, 2005 – online access to Cadastre and on-line registration and change of data for an employee at the Central Registry of Insured Persons (eREGOS) made available December, 2005 – Law on electronic document adopted January, 2006 - on-line filing of value added tax return forms (eVAT) made available February, 2006 – HITRO.hr offices available in all counties April, 2006 - on-line registration of crews on chartered yachts (eCrew) publicly presented May, 2006 - on-line registration and change of data for an employee at the obligatory pension fund (ePension) made available; Operational plan for the implementation of e-Croatia 2007 Program for 2006 (including 2004-2005 report) adopted June, 2006 – The first meeting of the National Council on Information Society (a Government advisory body with members from private and civil sector, academia and government); online registration of crafts made available July, 2006 – Government Open Source Policy adopted; draft of the National Broadband Strategy put up for public consultations October, 2006 – National Broadband Strategy adopted

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.
Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia is a central state administrative body, under the management of a State Secretary, who reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Office is responsible for the implementation of the e-Croatia 2007 Program – a comprehensive framework program of developing the Republic of Croatia into an Information Society. The HITRO.hr Program, one of the sectoral programs within the framework of the e-Croatia 2007 Program, aims at increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility and transparency of state administration, which can only be done by a systematic transformation of business processes. It relies on an efficient application of information and communication technologies and the state administration reform. The Program recognizes the basic principles of information security, interoperability, openness (especially the application of open standards), flexibility and scalability, which are a basis for building modern state administration information systems. The Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia manages the process of preparing operational plans for implementation of the e-Croatia 2007 Program in coordination with 35 administrative bodies responsible for the implementation of specific sectoral measures. The Office also monitors implementation, commissions independent studies measuring impact of the Program, and reports to the Government.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Mission of the HITRO.hr Program is to provide citizens and businesses one-stop-shop communication with public administration without need to understand the internal functional organization and competencies of state administrative bodies; to improve quality and efficiency as well as to reduce cost of the state administration for citizens and businesses through effective use of ICTs; to apply international standards and best practices based on the experiences of implementing e-Government in other countries; to use an open coordination process for establishing a system of strategies, policies, implementation plans and recommendations as well as standards and procedures that will establish a common architecture of state administration IT systems, based on the principles of interoperability, exchange and shared use of data, open standards, information security and protection of personal data; to facilitate competition of alternative technologies (protected and those based on open code) as well as large and small businesses – suppliers of goods, works and services in the field of ICTs in providing support for e-Government. HITRO.hr Program focuses on the set of 20 public services chosen for the benchmarking of availability of eGovernment services in the EU (income tax, job search, social security benefits, personal documents, car registration, building permits, declaration to the police, public libraries, certificates from registry books, enrolment in higher education, announcement of moving, health-related services, social contribution for employees, corporate tax, VAT, company registration, submission of data to the statistical office, customs declaration, environment-related permits, public procurement). This set was augmented by the services of special national interest (tourism, agriculture, culture, and state inspection).

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
HITRO.hr Program is one of the sectoral programs/strategies developed within the Framework Program e-Croatia 2007. Other such programs/strategies include National Program on Information Security in the Republic of Croatia, National Broadband Strategy, National Strategy for Digitalization of the National Heritage, and Government Open Source Policy. National e-Commerce Strategy is currently being drafted. e-Croatia 2007 Program draws from the experience of implementation of the previous national ICT strategy “Croatia in the 21st Century - Information and Communication Technology”; from active participation of Croatia in regional and global activities related to the development of the global information society – the Stability Pact eSEE Initiative (eSouth Eastern Europe), Geneva Declaration of Principles and Action Plan of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS); and eEurope 2005 Program of the European Union. Annual action plans and regular monitoring of implementation enable fine-tuning and aligning with international obligations Croatia accepted through EU accession and WSIS processes. Strategic documents and studies are available at www.e-croatia.hr (under Documents / Strategic documents).

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
HITRO.hr Project Office was created within the Central State Office for e-Croatia in cooperation with the Financial Agency. The Project Office coordinates implementation of the HITRO.hr Program, sets targets and provides support to ministries responsible for implementation of specific services through transfer of methodology and experiences among public administration institutions in Croatia and presentation of results of other countries. HITRO.hr offices have been organized within premises of the Financial Agency in all counties. These offices provide a single place of contact for establishing a company or craft, where entrepreneurs can obtain all relevant information, as well as submit all paperwork necessary for registering of a company or a craft. In these offices citizens and entrepreneurs can also obtain information on e-Government services, or request an electronic signature necessary for access to some of the electronic services. Number of steps for company registration was reduced from 10 to 3, and the duration of the procedure from an average of 40 days (World Bank report for 2002) to between three and five days (HITRO.hr office statistics). Procedure for registration of a craft now takes up to three days. Since the opening of the first HITRO.hr offices at the beginning of 2005, 13266 new companies and crafts were registered at HITRO.hr offices. At the national level 30% of all companies and crafts are registered through HITRO.hr offices, and in some counties this proportion runs above 50%. Users report high level of satisfaction with these services. Online services introduced in 2005 and 2006 include on-line filing of value added tax return forms (eVAT), on-line registration and change of data for an employee at the obligatory pension fund (ePension) and at the Central Registry of Insured Persons (eREGOS), on-line registration of crews on chartered yachts (eCrew), and on-line access to a series of national registries (land registry, cadastre, registry of companies, crafts, voters etc.). These services reduce administrative burden to businesses. Pension related services also increase the level of transparency and employee protection by enabling employees to monitor payments to pension funds made by there employers. Online access to land registry is especially popular among Croats who live abroad, and has helped reduce fraud in the real estate market. Studies of on-line availability of public administration services using the EU methodology and benchmarking indicators showed an increase in online availability of services for businesses from 5.3% in 2004 to 29.8% in 2005 and for citizens from 3.4% in 2004 to 38.2% in 2005. Study for 2006 is being prepared.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Sustainability of each service is ensured by retaining the ownership and responsibility for the project implementation with the responsible public authority. Thus, transformed processes and newly introduced services become part of a standard administrative procedure. Two coordination mechanisms support replication and dissemination. HITRO.hr Project Office provides support for implementation of new services, and enables dissemination of knowledge and best practice. Annual plans and reports are prepared within the context of the e-Croatia 2007 Program. Each responsible authority has appointed an e-Croatia 2007 coordinator who takes part in drafting of the annual implementation plan and prepares a report. Regular meetings of the coordinators supervised by the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia provide a mechanism for bottom-up initiatives, coordination of activities among the responsible authorities as well as a platform for presentation of best practices and exchange of lessons learned.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Two most important obstacles that had to be overcome were the difficulty of coordinating activities between different public authorities and lack of expertise on eGovernment in public administration. The most important driver and success factor was the strong political commitment and the direct support of the prime minister. The coherent framework of strategic documents formally adopted by the Government, presented publicly through media and conferences and available at the web site of the CSAOeC helped share the vision with the responsible public authorities and the general public. Bottom-up coordination was established through involving representatives (coordinators) of responsible public authorities in the process of drafting implementation plans and preparing reports. Additional incentive was provided through commissioning of independent studies on availability of public services on the internet and making the results publicly available. Top-down coordination was established through the HITRO.hr Project Office that provides specific support and knowledge transfer to the responsible public authorities. Lack of human resources was overcome by strategic partnership with Financial Agency - Fina, which provided experts for the HITRO.hr Project Office, premises, training, and the staff for the HITRO.hr offices in all counties, and the secure network infrastructure HITRONet. Availability of information on best practices, strategic and legal documents, and implementation mechanisms from various countries was very helpful in setting up the program. The legal framework was influenced by the process of harmonization of the Croatian laws with the EU Acquis Communautaire. On the other hand, institutional framework and implementation mechanisms are a novel approach of the Croatian administration that was built on the experiences of other countries which have successfully implemented e-Government.


Institution Name:		Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Diana Simic
Title:		Deputy State Secretary
Telephone/ Fax:		+385 1 6303 773
Institution's / Project's Website:		+385 1 6303 885
E-mail:		e-hrvatska@vlada.hr
Address:		Gajeva 4
Postal Code:		10000
City:		Zagreb
State/Province:
Country:		Croatia

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