At their most recent conference of district administrators, the North Rhine-Westphalian districts of Soest, Olpe, Hochsauerlandkreis, Siegen-Wittgenstein and Märkischer Kreis agreed to work more closely together on the digitalization of their administrations. “A development partnership for the diverse topics of digitization opens up the opportunity to jointly develop citizen-friendly and efficient solutions across district boundaries,” said District Administrator Dr. Karl Schneider of the Hochsauerland district about the project.
The joint initiative aims to make administrative services of the districts accessible online so that citizens and companies can use online services more easily and better in future. These include, for example, deregistering a vehicle, applying for care home allowance or for a riding license plate. The online services are available via a citizens’ online portal. Previously, each district administration had set its own priorities for digitalization. By working together, the districts make the online services they already use available to each other and share the tasks of developing new digital services. The districts are entering into a partnership with the municipal IT service provider Südwestfalen IT (SIT).
On the initiative of the Hochsauerland district, an initial meeting of the experts involved has already taken place in the district hall in Meschede. The prerequisite for the project of the five districts in South Westphalia is a comprehensive broadband expansion in order to provide residents and companies in the region with fast access to digital services as well as the flawless functionality of the project. To this end, the districts receive support from the Federal Broadband Funding Program of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure(BMVI) as part of funding applications. In total, they receive federal funding amounting to almost 39.3 million euros. The districts of Soest, Olpe, Hochsauerlandkreis, Siegen-Wittgenstein and Märkischer Kreis are using the funding to cover a profitability gap.
Photo: Collaboration facilitates the realization of digitization projects.
Photo credit: Optimarc/Schutterstock