The digital CCP is on its way
The public sector institution is upgraded and enters a new era.The KEPs plan is to fully digitize their services over the next year. This will allow faster citizens service, more efficiently and with as little physical presence as possible.
The Citizen Service Centres will receive update with improved infrastructure and information systems. New technologies will serve for their electronic self-service search.
Grigoris Theodorakis, the General Secretary of the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, spoke to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency about a “flagship project” which is the reform and simplification procedures in public administration.
The provision of administrative information and the processing of at least 1,000 cases of citizens requires their physical presence. They need to declare presence in one of a total of 1,064 Centers throughout the country. The submission of the request follows, and of the required documents. After days they return to the physical store to receive the “answer”. KEPs force people to go back and forth between them, which can be really tedious. 50 procedures can be carried out online through the National Portal “Hermes”, however, they mainly concern simple acts such as issuing certificates and attestations. These types of tasks do not require the simultaneous submission of intermediate documents, such as the issuance of a shop license.
In 2017, more than half cases (4,940,205) were processed electronically.
Mr Theodorakis says, “upgrading the infrastructure of the CCPs will allow all citizens to electronically circulate the acts of public administration and all their documents quickly, easily and securely without the need to print or make copies. The modernisation of applications and infrastructure will enable all the CCPs to provide highly integrated electronic services. The applications will help reduce the time taken to serve citizens and to combat bureaucracy. With digital CCPs, we are moving to the “once only”. The public administration won’t have to send out endless emails looking for documents. Document submission is necessary once and then the machine will keep track of them. It will send them out of the system when requested.
For example, in order to have a license for a sanitary establishment, one must submit dozens of documents. From one agency going to the next, one must wait for them, processed by the local KEP (inspection bureau). According to the Code of Administrative Procedure, many types of requests for certificates will only require 10 days to process. It may take a lot longer for more complicated process such as those listed above.
With digital CCPs, you can submit the request and immediately receive the response “come and get your permit” or “you cannot get your permit for X reasons”. To achieve this, Public Services require for the self-service and electronic search of supporting documents the interconnection of electronic systems (e.g. taxisnet and the Citizen’s Register).
Within March, Theodorakis said, we expect the inclusion of the project in the Operational Programme “Public Sector Reform”, followed by the announcement and the award of the contractor. The project will begin to function fully from the end of 2019. This looks like an achievable goal to complete. By then, there will be more than 1,000 procedures processed directly & online
The government recognizes the importance of KEPs, not threatening the existence of physical centres or existing jobs. The institution will strengthen with 150 new recruitments of employees through the organic vacancies in the Centres throughout the country. The number of 3,500 employees (2,500 workers and about 1,000 municipal employees) is insufficient to meet the level of services offered.
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Author: PC-GR
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