United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

In 2002 Germany reformed its civil registration law to abolish the obligation to deregister in the former place of living when moving house inside Germany. The aim was to make civil registration – and thus spatial mobility – more convenient for citizens. As the population registries still need to be updated, the change of address notifications now have to be transmitted directly between the civil registration authorities involved, the citizen thus saving one trip. This would clearly lead to new burdens for the administration. In order to avoid this, the consequent decision was to make electronic communication mandatory starting on 1 January 2007. It was immediately clear that a truly effective service provision could only be achieved via machine-to-machine-communication. Owing to the sensitivity of the process, the data had to be standardized and mechanisms for safeguarding their confidentiality and integrity had to be defined. This problem was overcome through a considerable amount of co-operation across the federal levels level and with partners from industry and research institutions. However, through achieving these obvious tasks it became clearer and clearer that there was one major problem waiting to be tackled. All the aforementioned security safeguards can only play their roles properly if the intended addressee of the information can be uniformly identified and immediately found. Technical addressing information together with security certificates for the more than 5,000 registration authorities had to be provided on the spot in machine-readable format without human interaction during the search. This in fact turned out to be the major challenge of the project with no off-the-shelf-solution available. As experience has shown, this “addressing problem” was in the past one of the major obstacles towards establishing service-oriented automatic solutions in open and consensus-oriented environments as they are typical for eGovernment solutions at least in Germany. Taking into consideration the size of the technical and – even more prominently – the organisational challenge it became obvious that establishing a solution for civil registration only would not be reasonable; a general infrastructure component was needed. This was the founding idea for the German Administration Services Directory (DVDV).

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Since the productive start of the DVDV 1 January 2007, the DVDV has been up and running without any down-time or major failures at all. A universal machine-readable services directory is thus at hand and now being used by more than 5,000 civil registration authorities, the central tax administration office and social service departments. This is a cornerstone for the provision of seamless automatic communication and process chains between and with public authorities, making effective and efficient eGovernment services much easier to establish. This idea realizes the philosophy behind service-oriented architectures (SOA): Well-defined “services” work together through interfaces and fixed communication protocols avoiding non-necessary human interaction. The DVDV is based completely on established internet standards and specifications. It is an OpenLDAP directory which stores WSDL ("WebService Description Language", an XML-based description of web-services established by the World Wide Web Consortium W3C) files containing the interface descriptions and the required security certificates. This guarantees that the DVDV can be used by any machine-machine service between and with public administrations across Germany. In effect the modernization programme for civil registration in Germany unexpectedly turned out to initiate the implementation of a completely new service-oriented and general infrastructure for eGovernment communication – a kind of positive "Trojan Horse-effect". Looking into the future, it is very likely that the DVDV will be able to play a key role in future automatic process chains between the administrative and the private sectors. This is precisely the type of eGovernment transactions which is being regarded as the major source of potential efficiency gains for both sides. The history of the DVDV has therefore only just begun. As far as figures are concerned the benefit of the DVDV can be calculated by examining its first supported service – civil registration in Germany. According to official estimates, exchanging paper notifications prior to the change produced costs of approx. 2.70 € per transaction. It was possible to reduce the costs through the introduction of electronic notifications to approx. 0.38 €. Since the start of the DVDV approx. 500,000 transactions have been performed per month. This amounts to savings of roughly 1 Mio. € per month. Comparing this with the DVDV's development costs in the amount of approx. 300,000 € between 2004 and 2006 and operational costs of roughly 200,000 € per year, it is safe to state that DVDV produced a return on investment after less than one month. With regard to financial gains it is also relevant to notice that the financial effect is even likely to be higher for new supported services as the initial investments have already been made. In the context of civil registration the DVDV produces benefit primarily for civil servants in the registration authorities. Indirectly the citizens also have the benefit of avoiding one trip to the registration office, as without electronic notifications this change of law would have been impossible. As infrastructure the DVDV has the potential to produce benefits for all German citizens, administrations and private companies in Germany.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
In Germany civil registration is in the hands of local governments and until 2006 it was completely governed by laws of the federal states (Bundesländer) with a federal framework law setting the general scene. For this reason, the Cross-Level IT-Co-operation Body (KoopA ADV), which has already existed since 1969, was the most appropriate forum for the development of the DVDV. The starting point of the DVDV was an initiative of four of its members, namely the states of Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, which – in part supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior – started the initial implementation of the DVDV. The software development was carried out by a Solution Consortium composed by the public IT-Service and IT-Solution providers Bremen Online Services, Dataport and KDO. Under the auspices of the KoopA ADV a quality assurance team of representatives from Government and from public IT-Service Providers reviewed the implementation efforts on a “no-cost-basis”. A close co-operation with the cross-federal co-ordination group for the implementation of the new civil registration law assured the acceptance of the DVDV among its intended users. In fact the conference of Ministers of the Interior from the federal states finally declared the use of DVDV mandatory for civil registration. In 2005/2006 the KoopA decided to establish more sustainable structures for the approaching productive phase of the DVDV. The financing of the software maintenance and support and of the central operational costs is now being shared among the states' and the federal government's KoopA members according to a fixed distribution key. Owing to the decentralised structure of the DVDV (see below), the roles of the local production servers, the state's maintenance agencies and the central replication master had to be taken over. In the federal states the tasks were assumed by the respective public IT service providers; the replication master is operated by the Federal Office for Information Technology (Bundesstelle für Informationstechnik, BIT), which is a department of the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt, BVA). The BIT also provides a central co-ordination bureau for the DVDV which is of great importance with regard to the complex structure of the stakeholders involved. The IT service provider for the State of Hesse (HZD) assumed the role of acting as a contractual partner of the solution consortium on behalf of the KoopA. When the operational phase started, it became of paramount importance to ensure a fast and flexible decision process. The KoopA thus formed a management group consisting of four of its 19 members (the Federal Ministry of the Interior,as well as the states of Bremen, Hamburg and Rhineland-Palatinate), which is authorised to handle the common budget for software development and to take all the relevant operational decisions. Last but not least, providers of civil registration software, i.e. various companies, were also required to take their share by implementing the DVDV interfaces into their products using a software development kit provided by the DVDV Consortium.

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 main objective of the DVDV initiative was to provide a universal addressing directory for secure and reliable machine-to-machine communication with and within the public administration in Germany. The implementation strategy was adapted during the implementation process. At first it was an initiative of four federal states implementing the first version of the DVDV as a proof-of-concept and as a starting point for the productive system. During this phase the practical work has been done by the Solution Consortium as described in the answer before. The support of a quality assurance group composed of various public IT service providers throughout Germany was also crucial. At the start of the transition phase towards an operating system, the KoopA took over the responsibility (see above). Apart from the Solution Consortium remaining active in maintenance and software support the Federal Office for Information Technology as the operator of the central replication master and various public IT service providers in their role as decentralised replicants and data maintenance agencies came into play. At any stage, the use of generally accepted standards and specifications together with open interfaces and programming tools has been the major strategic building block of the DVDV. Finally, the importance of an intensive communication and co-operation with the DVDV’s future users, i.e. civil registration authorities, the data standardisation group for civil registration and the corresponding software suppliers must not be underestimated.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
May 2004: Representatives of the states of Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lower Saxony decide to issue a feasibility study for a services directory for machine-machine-communication in eGovernment September 2004: Conclusion of the feasibility study with approval by the KoopA; the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Bremen (lead partners), Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lower Saxony contract for the prototype of the DVDV. November 2004: Project kick-off in Bremen March 2005: Successful public presentation of the DVDV prototype April 2005: Decision of continuation by the KoopA; in response, release development starts in June 2005, costs for support and maintenance in 2006 are financed jointly by the KoopA January 2006: Federal Office for Information Technology (BIT) in the Federal Office of Administration is formally being charged with the set-up and operation of the DVDV federal master. April 2006: Establishment of the DVDV co-ordination office at the BIT. June 2006: Test of DVDV system version 1.0 in co-operation with the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate (replication and data management) November 2006: DVDV federal master with all data from the 5,300 plus civil registration agencies collected by the states and their respective addressing parameters is available for live operation. 1 January 2007: Electronic communication in civil registration becomes mandatory; live operation of the complete DVDV system starts. The system runs with no interruptions and virtually no flaws from day one. February 2007: The management group installed by the KoopA to plan and monitor operation of the DVDV, consisting of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Bremen, Hamburg and Rhineland-Palatinate, has its kick-off meeting in Wiesbaden. April - July 2007: Induction of new services into the DVDV, Federal Tax Agency, social security agencies, state-wide registration register in the state of Saxony. June 2007: First User's Conference for the DVDV December 2007: KoopA formally adopts a "charta" stating the main principles for the future operation and development of the DVDV.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Right from the beginning the original obstacle was the fact that – much to the surprise of many – it turned out to be impossible to use an off-the-shelf-solution for addressing the problem in civil registration as described above. This obstacle could only be overcome by starting an implementation on our own; the “birth” of the DVDV project. As with many projects in public administration, one of the main obstacles at the beginning of the DVDV was an obvious lack of financial and personnel resources for planning and implementing the system. It was through the voluntary and enthusiastic co-operation of several partners in the federal system of Germany that staff and sources of ideas could be activated. In order to minimise the costs for software development it was decided to build the systems through a "rapid prototyping" approach minimizing the programming effort spent. This approach had to be complemented by a rather thorough process of quality assurance in order to identify and eliminate flaws in the development process. The fact that since its start the DVDV is being used virtually without downtimes and errors proves that such a process can actually lead to valuable and stable systems. To reduce the operational costs it was decided not to build isolated high-availability systems but instead to introduce a replication mechanism with one central “federal” replication server guaranteeing consistency of the data within seven local operational servers – replication slaves, technically speaking – across Germany operated by public IT service providers. In case one of these servers should ever be down, agreements between theses providers make sure that the clients simply switch over to a partner server. This principle has been taken from the success of the Internet which has a similar "availability through replication" philosophy. As the start of the operational phase came nearer organisational obstacles became more relevant than technical ones. In particular, it became obvious that unambiguous roles and responsibilities had to be defined and a central contact point for all relevant questions concerning the DVDV had to be established. As a response to that observation the "DVDV project" was transformed into a (virtual) "DVDV organisation" under the overall supervision of the KoopA. The main instrument for this transformation was the installation of the DVDV management group with the authorisation to make all the necessary decisions within a given budget. With only four (instead of 18) persons at the table the necessary decisions could be taken much faster and more flexibly. At least equally important was the establishment of the DVDV co-ordination bureau in the Federal Office for Information Technology. Now all parties involved in the DVDV process knew to whom they could present any problems. Requests and reports could be bundled and quickly turned into proposals for adequate measures.

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
As described above it was important to limit the project costs in order to guarantee acceptance of this new and uncertain approach. Thus, in a first step the states of Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony started the conception phase at their own cost and at their own risk, but in close communication with the other KoopA partners in order to make sure that once the concept proved to be successful a common financing of the final development and the operations could be achieved. During this phase it was crucial that public IT service providers were also willing to share the risk and join the conceptual part and the prototype development on a low-cost basis. The fact that throughout the complete definition and implementation of the DVDV generally accepted standards and open interfaces were used and that this principle ensured the usability of the DVDV for general purposes (apart from civil registration) was surely crucial for the willingness to make those “risky” financial and personal investments. This is especially true for the persons working for free in the quality assurance group. In terms of figures it can be stated that during the years 2004 and 2005 the implementation costs summed to approx. 300,000 €. The costs for operating the central replication master, maintenance and support for the software and external personal resources supporting the co-ordination bureau in 2007 amount to around 250,000 €. In contrast the estimated savings gained by switching from paper to electronic notifications throughout Germany can be estimated in the magnitude of approx. 1 Mio. € per month(!) according to official sources. Even though it is fair to say that these gains cannot completely be taken on the “DVDV side” it is safe to state that within German public administration a very fast return on invest could be achieved through the DVDV. This effect grows with any new service entering the DVDV, because the initial investment does not have to made any more.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Sustainability of the DVDV is guaranteed through the fact that even after less than one year of operation nobody is willing to lower the level of service quality achieved by machine-machine-communication in civil registration. The DVDV management group is in the process of defining a business and financing model for the DVDV which aims to replace the year-to-year process of "collecting money" among the KoopA members which was – naturally – common throughout the starting phase of the DVDV where cost estimates could only be performed for shorter periods of time. In Germany a process of defining and implementing cross-level infrastructures for electronic administration in general has been started during the last two years. Long-term sustainability of the DVDV will certainly be achieved through integrating the DVDV into these structures both technically and financially. Right from the beginning the DVDV has been developed as an infrastructure component which is independent on any specific application using it. Therefore a "replication" of the system within Germany is not only unnecessary but would even be counter-productive. It is thus the declared aim of the KoopA to integrate the addressing part of any suitable machine-machine-communication into the DVDV. On the international level the DVDV has already been taken into the "Middleware Coordination Activities" working group of the European Union's commission. Considering the general trend towards machine-machine-communication and services-oriented solution architectures the technical solution as well as the management model of the DVDV could be used or adopted by other countries. The management group of the DVDV is willing to share Germany's experiences with the DVDV with anybody interested and learn from others as well. All technical principles and interfaces are documented and open.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The DVDV is a practical demonstration of a comprehensive Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). By adding a directory service to existing secure and reliable messaging protocols and standardized XML schemas for processes based on open Internet standards, combined with a development model of rapid prototyping, it shows to public IT managers how cheap and fast service-oriented solutions can be developed to deliver high availability, security and performance in practical cross-level eGovernment applications. This proves to eGovernment decision-makers responsible for high-level architecture that with using the advantages of an electronic directory service, savings in operational costs, savings in developing new services through using the existing infrastructure, and reductions in administrative burdens both for direct users in administrations and indirect users among citizens and businesses can be achieved. This evidence of high-impact, cost-saving eGovernment will help legitimize further investments, especially for professional, cross-organizational eGovernment initiatives. Finally, the case illustrates to a public often sceptical of the “self-re-organizing” capacities of the public sector that a cross-level, cross-sector co-operation between all levels of governments, from the IT sector as well as the specific sectors taking advantage of its services, is not only a crucial prerequisite for a successfully efficient and effective delivery of a directory service, but can in fact be achieved at the same time by sharing development and operational costs in an innovative, distributed management and technical model. Using open interfaces and generally recognized specifications and standards is a necessary prerequisite for transforming this successful co-operation into international scenarios where in the future a net of national, regional,... services directories could be basic infrastructures for international machine-machine-communication in complex applications. Also, its lessons can be adapted by industry for delivery of complex SOA process chains in open environments.


Institution Name:		German Cross-Governmental Co-ordination Body for IT
Institution Type:		Public Organization
Contact Person:		Christian Mrugalla
Title:		Desk Officer
Telephone/ Fax:		0049(0)30186814326
Institution's / Project's Website:		0049(0)301868154326
E-mail:		christian.mrugalla@bmi.bund.de
Address:		Bundesministerium des Innern, Bundesallee 216-218
Postal Code:		D-10719
City:		Berlin
State/Province:
Country:		Germany

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