United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The one-stop-shop business model depicts the online delivery of bureaucratic services as a process that a customer (e.g. citizen, professional, company) triggers (providing both process descriptions and data) at the system of an administrative network. The latter is a set of public administrators that processes the customer's input (along with information yielded by external processes) in terms of both data and process descriptors, and finally issues legally valid documents (e.g. authorizations, or certifications) back to the customer, thus closing the process. Infrastructural external sub-process have often to be coordinated: e.g., electronic document legal record and filing, or cash management.
According to the fundamental principle of the Italian National e-Government Plan, Municipalities since 1997 are devoted to support the One-Stop-Shop for Productive Activity , a priority by the provision of the law.
The Italian local administrations are formed by a high number of autonomous subjects (over 8.000) of very different dimensions. At the beginning of this century, as per Italian law we had a very heterogeneous situation at national and regional levels; with limited benefits in terms of activity’s simplification, while companies and entrepreneurs had to relate to different solutions even within the same regional area. The use of new technologies was residual and very limited, mainly focused to provide information, and not a service platform integrated from the administration’s front-office to the back-office, with a real cut of time for the procedure’s carrying out . Hence the need to create a service platform that offers a single access point to users involved in economical, industrial as well as commercial processes in order to encourage and promote efficient, easy and secure interaction between Users and Local Government bodies as well as regional and central Public Administration bodies.
Usually, customers have to initiate processes dynamically, due to their contingencies: e.g., the specific obligations brought by the attributes of an industrial activity for which an administrative service is being requested. Customers' "service expectation" brings a variability that is modelled by means of the sub-process structure of the whole service delivery process. Atomic procedures, to be implemented as sub-processes, are modelled into a structured knowledge base of the administrative network.
Therefore, besides acting within the one-stop-shop process, the administrative network is also involved in the maintenance of the procedural models implemented by each actual delivery process described above: process and sub-process descriptions, reference data, document and form templates, normative references and texts.
The technological platform had to grant the management of both processes: actual delivery and maintenance, both as an autonomous system (a public web application that each actor can access within its own roles and capabilities) and as macro-manager of external sub-processes, by means of a modular and interoperable architectural design.
The fundamental principle was to provide enterprises with clear and transparent information on procedure course, allowing users to have on-line access to procedural flows. This requires both a secure and robust ICT infrastructure, within which access to services is suitably certified and authenticated.
The back office functions developed for the public administration operators will also be made available via the web, through secure access (extranet).

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Use of open technologies and share of simple organizational and procedural models allowed a large community of municipalities to implement a standardised platform, named AIDA ( the acronym for Applications for Interoperable Digital Administrations ), for delivering e-government services, where the main process is dynamically set up at the network hub, and the flow of sub-processes can be distributed and suitably monitored. The same content is offered to both human and applicative actors, and new emerging services can be easily integrated into such a procedural framework. The offered flexibility meaningfully encouraged the re-use of the AIDA platform and its co-operation model across a number of administrative networks in Tuscany: in 2009, the quite larger number of bodies is challenging AIDA to hierarchically manage and maintain both the knowledge base (coordinated by the Tuscan Regional Government) and the back-office processes; to deploy new integrated online services within regional and national systems, like the Tuscan Regional coordination of commerce licenses, or the IT systems of the regional associations of Craftsmen and of Traders and of the National Fire Brigade. AIDA 2009 is the outcome of the work and the expertise of a constantly enlarging group of administrative networks, that have been sharing problems and solutions in delivering online services. The AIDA community shares the maintenance and upgrade of common models: - for organizing and managing the lifecycle of an online service delivered by each Municipality through its relevant "One stop shop for economic activities"; - for sharing archives, held and owned by different bodies, where relevant data are kept about running processes. Adopting the AIDA platform requires only to focus on customizing its knowledge base according specific models, user forms and regulative texts; then, configuring interoperability with existing back-office systems completes the process. Moreover, the current software platform flexibly manages hierarchical knowledge bases, in order to simplify inheritance and maintenance of procedural models across trees of public bodies (usually following territorial hierarchies). The availability of such organizational and operational tools is further encouraging standardization and sharing of solutions between administrative subjects, at any level: beyond public bodies, also economic associations (Industry, Craftsmen and Traders) are strongly and effectively involved in such a process. With the support of the Tuscan Regional Government and of the National ICT Agency for Public Administration , at the current stage of its re-use AIDA is being accepted as a reference model also for standardization initiatives concerning bureaucratic taxonomies and interoperability with the national Central Administration system Technological model XML technologies are adopted for structuring information into the knowledge base, and manipulate it across different systems. Software solutions are based on Java and on open and standard technologies, mainly maintained by the international community within relevant projects. Interoperability is implemented by means of SOAP technologies, according to national indications (exchange of XML messages on SOAP protocol.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The initiative was taken up by Livorno Municipality (www.comune.livorno.it), a provincial capital of Tuscany Region-Italy (160.549 inhabitants) , since 1998 participates in the Steering Committee of Tuscany Region Data Communication Network ( www.regione.toscana.it ) permanent means of coordination of the regional system of local authorities and cooperation in the promotion of e- government and of the information and knowledge society. In year 2003 the Livorno Municipality lead a consortium of more than twenty municipalities in Tuscany to feeding their e-government experiences into the development of a shared model and of a common applicative framework: the AIDA project, co financed by national plan for e-government. The AIDA project was supported by the regional Union of Chambers of Commerce, co-financed by the Department for Innovation and Technologies (DIT) of the Italian Cabinet, and sponsored by the Tuscany Regional Government within the "e-Toscana" initiative. The initial Project Consortium included 16 Municipalities (Livorno, Grosseto, Lucca, Massa, Pisa, Siena, Carrara, Bagno a Ripoli , Borgo a Mozzano, Chiusi della Verna, Collesalvetti, Massa Marittima, Peccioli, Piombino, S. Vincenzo, Sambuca Pistoiese, Viareggio), 2 Municipal Consortia (Comunità Montana del Casentino, Comunità Montana del Cetona), 4 Provincial Administrations (Livorno, Pisa, Lucca, Massa Carrara), 3 Local Health Agencies (Livorno, Lucca, Pisa), 1 Chamber of Commerce (Lucca), 1 Fire Deparment (Livorno). In our days , in Tuscany 134 bodies are carrying on their own adoption of the AIDA model and platform, and new integrated services are being deployed within regional and national projects: the regional integration of the commerce licenses (Tuscan Regional Government "C7" project), the integration with the IT systems of the regional associations of Craftsmen and of Traders, the integration with the IT management of the security and prevention procedures of the National Fire Brigade Software design and development has been carried under the coordination of Infocamere S.c.p.A., the ICT company of Italian Chambers of Commerce, and of its high-tech affiliate company Metaware SpA, within their core commitment in providing infrastructures for national e-government best practices.

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) Technological strategies - A number of previous projects could supply their results to that initiative. In particular, technologies and organizational models had already reached a noteworthy maturity in Livorno, in securely managing "dematerialized" flows with electronic documents, digital signatures and national identity cards. Furthermore, with the support of the Tuscany Region, since 1999 several large municipalities had been sharing a model for organizing and managing information and functionality of the front-office of one-stop-shops. Based on those approaches and practices, the goal was defined and pursued of unifying the organizational models into an applicative framework, that allow to easily compose each building block of the complete "e?delivery" process of an administrative service, compliant with the provisions of Italian laws in force .FLOSS technologies were pervasively used, AIDA supports the following functional building blocks 1) front-office. User management: profiling users with credentials (like digital certificates), personal data (like addresses for multichannel reserved communications), authorization flags, delegation data; authentication (login/password, digital certificate); authorization (management and control of roles and capabilities associated to users);standardization of procedural information for the user (procedure cards, normative references and structured texts);support to dynamic composition of sub-processes; user input optimization (when an electronic document can be accepted, interactive forms re-use already input data and minimize error risks);payment management (online transactions and/or information exchange for offline payment);process status monitoring and customer's desktop with the history of its interactions with the system; 2) back-end. Grouping sub-processes into properly composed dossier, related to specific administrative instances; process initiation, sub-process coordination; external sub-process management (initiation and event monitoring); event notification and subscription management (sending process information back to interested human and applicative actors);3) back-office. Sub-process management; maintenance of procedural models in the knowledge base. The back-end provides the main "interoperability layer. Moreover, as any object produced and owned by a public body, AIDA could be easily adopted and "re-used" by any other public institution with no further effort than the one required by the integration in its specific organizational and operational context. Since then, regular experimentations with national interoperability project (the National Portal for Enterprises "impresa.gov"), along with careful maintenance, upgrade and integration of the software platform, have been allowing to offer AIDA as an e-government platform to promote easy, efficient, reliable and secure on-line interactions among all the nodes of bureaucratic services: customers (citizens, businesses), local government, regional and central Public Administration. Such features have been attracting a growing number of administrative networks (single municipalities, consortia of town councils, provincial area federation of one-stop-shops). B) Organizing strategies - The project coordination has been done by the Livorno Municipality through an integrated group of the information and administration offices, to grant a complete picture of the problems and the check of the involved activities. The “project” group has always been connected with the project partners and with the trade associations and the professional bodies who have also contributed with specific projects of integration with the Regional system (e-Toscana).

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The project AIDA started in September 2003; the delivery of final platform, including infrastructural services and 47 online services for enterprises, was completed in October 2005. Afterwards, in May 2006, backed by the Regional policy of re-use of e-government, the phase of re-use has started. A constant policy for the growth of the platform goes along with this phase still in progress, even with the limits of the financial resources availability (Regional funds). A more important phase of growth is connected to the starting up of the National funds for the re-use of e-governments projects of the “e-government National Plan” that also foresees a further expansion outside the Tuscany Region, in additional 48 local Authorities (leader Pescara Municipality)

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The major hindrances occurred are of 4 types: 1st the coordination activity. The implementation at different administrations has highly engaged the coordinator body, expression of a single Administration, to carry out a new additional function towards other Local Administrations . This has required some organizing adaptations within the Livorno Municipality , even supported by an economical incentive of the Tuscany Region for the coordination activity of the re-use of the platform (Regional aid). 2nd the high number and the heterogeneousness of of the Administrations involved into the re-use platform, connected to a physiological alternation/renewals of the political body. 3rd the difficulty to let the customers modify their habits. 4th Within the Administration is necessary to involve several sectors of activity (Commerce, Environment, Local Police, Local Taxes, etc.) connected for various reasons to the One-Shop Office for the productive activities. All the 4 items have requested a high communication effort, supported by the Regional policy for the re-use.

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
Funds : The AIDA project was initially co-funded by the Department for Innovation and Technologies (DIT) of the Italian Cabinet, supported by the regional Union of Chambers of Commerce and sponsored by the Tuscany Regional Government within the "e-Toscana" initiative. The Municipality of Livorno has always been leading and coordinating the whole project, which is currently being extended and “re-used” by more than one hundred municipalities (grouped into autonomous administrative networks) supported by the Tuscan Regional Government and the National Agency for ICT in Public Administration (CNIPA), for a total 1,4 MEUR cost co-financed for € 860.000 by e-government national plan. Human resources: all the Administrations who agreed to the project have contributed with their own personnel, mainly the coordinator, who interfaced the companies in charge of the development and has been able to create a network cooperating system The original working group, author of the application software development, has been created within the Livorno Municipality personnel and has not been subsequently modified, just integrated with one unit.. Starting from the beginning of AIDA project (2003), the involved personnel is 15 units (2 of D5 category, 12 of C4, 1 of B5) for a total cost of € 322.000,00.. The benefit for personnel vocational training is remarkable too, for the number of the trainees and the involved cost: as from 2003 to 2007, about 140 employees have attended the trainings for a total cost of about € 105.000,00

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
AIDA is the outcome of the work and the expertise of a constantly enlarging group of administrative networks, that have been sharing problems and solutions in delivering online services. The AIDA community shares the maintenance and upgrade of common models: 1) for organizing and managing the lifecycle of an online service delivered by each Municipality through its relevant "One stop shop for economic activities"; 2) for sharing archives, held and owned by different bodies, where relevant data are kept about running processes. Adopting the AIDA platform requires only to focus on customizing its knowledge base according specific models, user forms and regulative texts; then, configuring interoperability with existing back-office systems completes the process. Moreover, the current software platform flexibly manages hierarchical knowledge bases, in order to simplify inheritance and maintenance of procedural models across trees of public bodies (usually following territorial hierarchies). The availability of such organizational and operational tools is further encouraging standardization and sharing of solutions between administrative subjects, at any level: beyond public bodies, also economic associations (Industry, Craftsmen and Traders) are strongly and effectively involved in such a process. For re-use no special hardware or software is needed: AIDA has been designed to be portable and autonomous. The project is well known and appreciated not only at a Regional level ( “Città ideale Award “, Florence 2008 , “Dire e fare” annual exhibition www.dire-fare.eu ) but even at National and European level : best practice Public Function and Innovation Ministry www.innovazionepa.gov.it section “ non solo fannulloni !” and best practice at European Public Sector Award (EPSA) www.epsa2009.eu within the theme Performance Improvement in Public service Delivery . The numbers of re-users , as well as the numbers of users (customers) of the platform, are steady rising.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Several efforts have been made in Italy in the last decade to innovate the PA services, particularly with the e-government politics. Unfortunately a difference between expectations and effectiveness must be detected, correlated to some scepticism about the capability of the PA to really change. The AIDA project is an effectiveness that demonstrates that a change is possible. What are the key points ? 1- the competence and the cohesion of the team who has worked out AIDA. As from the beginning all the involved personnel, both administrative and informatics , has formed a dedicated team with a high cohesion, professionalism and motivation to improve the existing situation, all essential peculiarities to ensure the continuous growth and effectiveness of the project. It is a bottom up type process, rather than a top down type. Moreover the same team was involved in the basic project for the AIDA working out: : Documentary Flow Project started in 1998 , integrated with Digital signature and electronic Identity card ; selected as one of 65 finalist at e-Europe Awards for e-Government – 2003 www.epractice.eu/egovernment2003 . 2- The connection with the professional associations (the intermediary subjects between entrepreneurs and Public Administration), involved from the beginning into the AIDA project to assess the services to be provided and the development conditions. A community of interest, instead of a possible conflict, has been generated from the participation of the intermediary subjects in the process of administrative simplification, joining the potentialities of the information instrument with the coordination and harmonizing action . 3- The re-use, the crucial point in the general strategy to implement better synergy among the various public administration bodies. The e-government process has already generated cases of excellence in Italy, limited to their specific application area: a confirmation of the lack of a global strategy that has brought about a half revolution only, and not lack of funds. On the contrary, AIDA has had the capability to appropriate the strategy of the e-government plans and, starting from a complete application system, interoperable, at low-cost of implementation, able to control the whole cycle of services and to integrate with the existing systems. AIDA was able to create a network community 4- the extension of the re-use has been successful thanks to the technical characteristics of AIDA and to the political action, both at a strategic (e-gov. plans) and legal level, done by the State and the Tuscany Region, to stimulate and support the Public Administrations on the re-use. Just to finish, the most important lesson is that, to obtain good results, it is first of all necessary enthusiasm and open mind not only to the technological innovation, but mainly towards the relations with a good attitude to increase the communication.


Institution Name:		LIVORNO MUNICIPALITY
Institution Type:		Public Organization
Contact Person:		GRAZIELLA LAUNARO
Title:		GENERAL AFFAIRS DPT. MANAGER
Telephone/ Fax:		+39.0586.820383
Institution's / Project's Website:		+39.0586.518485
E-mail:		g.launaro@comune.livorno.it
Address:		Piazza del Municipio, 1
Postal Code:		57100
City:		LIVORNO
State/Province:		LIVORNO
Country:		Italy

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