the ALF OOP case outlined above. Along with the proactive service provisioning, the sharing and re-use of data across public service providers enables governments to fulfill legal obligations faster. Such efficiency gains are clearly recognizable in the OOP cases studied in SCOOP4C [49,54] and exemplified in the OOP cases in Subsect.4.1above.
Higher Quality of Data. Another core benefit for public administrations in the OOP implementation is that enablers such as secure data exchange, eID and trust services as well as enabling infrastructures offer access to quality-assured authentic sources of data. In combination with the reduction of administrative burden and more efficient and effective process execution, public administration are facilitated to save costs and to reduce redundant and error-prone activities of repeated recording of data that is already in the hands of public administration, as the data is retrieved from the quality-assured authentic sources. In addition, the recording of new or revised data is done once. In many cases, this step is even assigned to the data subject (i.e. citizens and businesses) through online service portals.
5.2 Enablers as a Vehicle to Overcome Barriers of OOP Implementations In order to realize the benefits of the once-only principle for citizens and businesses as well as for public service providers, a number of key enablers have to be in place. In the SCOOP4C project, we argue that barriers and enablers of OOP implementations are two sides of the same coin: while the barriers represent obstacles and hindrances that prevent the realization of the OOP in public service provisioning, the enablers help to overcome these barriers and to guarantee the widest possible success in leveraging the benefits of the once-only principle. In other words, governments need to put in place the respective enablers to ensure the successful and effective implementation of the once-only principle.
Along the good practice analysis and subsequent roadmapping activity in SCOOP4C, the subsequent enablers of OOP implementations have been identified and elaborated.
Since barriers of OOP are considered the non-availability of enablers, only the posi- tive side of the coin (i.e. existing enablers) is considered below. The categorization of enablers is on the one hand derived from the interoperability layers of the European Interoperability Framework and the conceptual model of public services in the EIF [14], the European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA) [13]. On the other hand, further soft factors are grouped into relevant categories as outlined in Sect.3.
The following core enablers of successful OOP implementations have been grouped along the interoperability layers and concepts of the public service conceptual model of the EIF:
Political Commitment. Political commitment is considered a pre-condition for suc- cessful OOP implementations and is particularly stressed at European level through strategic documents such as the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016–2020 [16], the
the implementation of the once-only principle in digitalization strategies at the differ- ent levels of Government in Europe is a key enabler. An essential aspect along such political commitments are the will and capacities of governments to finance, coordinate, implement, and monitor the realization of the once-only principle in public service pro- visioning. To boost innovation and to respect different maturity levels across Europe, the implementation of the OOP in public service may first be based on coalitions of the willing actors and therewith also boost competition in being the first and best practice.
Legal Frameworks. Legal frameworks are required to enable the sharing and reuse of data stored in government’s base registries while at the same time ensuring data privacy and protection of citizen’s rights. Hence, legal frameworks have to be scrutinized and adjusted to enable the once-only principle to be realized in public service provisioning.
Particular areas, where regulations represent key enablers for the sharing and re-use of sensitive data, concern e.g. the many base registries of the public sector, secure data exchange mechanisms, eID and trust services, as well as data protection and data privacy.
The European Union has provided such crucial legal enablers such as the General Data Protection Regulation [19] or the Single Digital Gateway Regulation [21]. The same applies to the Member State countries. For example, to enable the OOP solutions ALF, Studielink, EHR and TAXISnet presented in Sect.4, necessary legislation has been put in place in Austria, Estonia, Greece and the Netherlands.
Organizational Commitment and Collaborative Business Processes. Besides the legal framework, organizational commitment and collaborative business processes have to be in place to enable governments to share citizens’ (personal) data among public administrations in secured networks (i.e. sharing and re-using knowledge assets e.g.
stored in base registries) and on the basis of standards. The OOP cases outlined in Sect. 4.1 build on such commonly agreed collaborative business processes. Another organizational enabler is multilateral agreements to collaborate as well as to use open standards and open specifications in the public service provisioning implementing the OOP. Such agreements should also be in place regarding the use of common technical infrastructure.
Ensuring Semantic Interoperability Through Common Data Exchange Standards, Common Vocabularies and Taxonomies. Data exchange across different institutions requires semantic enablers to be in place, such as standards for the data exchange, a common terminology, controlled vocabularies and agreed-upon code lists (e.g. as unique identifiers of data sets), or taxonomies to facilitate data exchange between different institutions. The secure data exchange enablers introduced in Sect.4.2above present such examples.
Technical Enablers such as Secure Networks and Infrastructure. Commonly used secure networks and infrastructure are key enablers for the interchange and re-use of cit- izens’ data across the governments, including across borders. This includes commonly used services for electronic identification and for trust services (e.g. concept of active
Collaborative Governance Mechanisms. The implementation of the once-only prin- ciple demands different institutional actors to collaborate among different stakeholders.
To facilitate the successful implementation of the once-only principle, appropriate col- laborative governance models are needed, which clearly define the responsibilities and roles of actors on different levels of governance. Of particular relevance are interop- erability governance and public service governance, which both need to be aligned as spotted in [13,54,57,59].
Beyond the key enablers clustered on the basis of the EIF, the following crucial soft enabling factors have been identified and synthesized from the case study analysis:
Motivators, Benefits, and Public Value. Providing incentives, benefits, public value or convenience for citizens, businesses and governments to share and re-use data stored in public administrations’ registries is the first soft key enabler to mention. The OOP case examples outlined in Sect.4.1demonstrate clearly these motivators and benefits to the relevant stakeholders. This contributes to better acceptance and use of the OOP solution.
Access to Authentic Sources Contributes to Improved Data Quality. The access to authentic data contributes to increased data quality in governmental registries. This enabler can be achieved through the implementation of enablers such as secure data exchange and enabling infrastructure and the necessary interoperability enablers outlined before and some examples provided in Sect.4.2. Great examples that demonstrate the value-added of improved data quality realized through direct access to authentic sources are the OOP cases presented in Sect.4.1.
Trust and Transparency. Trust and transparency mechanisms enable citizens to control and monitor by whom, when, and why their data is accessed. Such enabling building blocks are for example the concept of active consent for the sharing and re-use of sensitive or personal data of citizens and businesses or the access to the logging of who has accessed data on the data subject in a particular registry, by when and for what purpose. Such a service is e.g. provided via the X-Road enabler in Estonia (cf. enabler description in Sect.4.2).
Data Protection and Privacy. The sharing and re-use of citizen data requires to respect privacy and ensure data protection. Hence, mechanisms for data protection need to be in place. Such mechanisms can be on the one hand relevant legislation as is outlined in the respective legal framework enabler above as well as technical building blocks such as eID and trust services such as the concept of the consent (see next enabler) or secure data exchange or infrastructure building blocks.
Socio-cultural Influence Factors. Socio-cultural aspects such as traditions of sharing or not sharing data among governments, ownership of data and citizens’ obligations vs. freedom of deciding when and how to provide data to governments are central for
restrictions, thus limiting the OOP implementation to the scope of the service and data.
Such factors may vary across countries. However, they play a crucial role in the public service provisioning and in ensuring acceptance and trust of citizens and businesses in the public service.
Citizen-Centered Design. To correspond to the needs and expectations of citizens and other stakeholders in the OOP implementation in the best possible was, the relevant actors need to be involved in co-designing and co-developing of the OOP services, ensuring ease of use, convenience, and good user experience. The more citizen-centered the design of public services is, the more it enables the creation of better quality policy decisions and the offering of better services in the future.
It is important to note that the different enablers outlined above are not mutually exclusive. Instead, the enablers build upon one another and are therefore intertwined and mutually dependent. This means that just implementing one of the enablers is not sufficient for a successful implementation of OOP solutions.
6 Conclusions
This contribution investigated the implementation of the OOP across Europe by studying existing good practice cases and enablers in different Member States. First, an overview of relevant theoretical and political foundations was provided, followed by an outline of the research design, which employed literature analysis and case study research. The presentation of good practices is divided into OOP cases and OOP enablers. In the SCOOP4C project, 57 OOP cases and 34 OOP enablers were analysed. Four examples per group were briefly outlined in the paper to demonstrate how the OOP is realized and provides benefits to citizens and public sector actors.
Subsequently, a synthesis of benefits and key enablers to realize the once-only prin- ciple widely was presented. The benefits affiliated with OOP implementations in pub- lic service provisioning are a) reduction of administrative burden, b) increased trust and transparency, c) increased efficiency and effectiveness, and higher quality of data.
Eleven key enablers of OOP implementations were spotted: 1) political commitment, 2) legal frameworks, 3) organizational commitment and collaborative business processes, 4) semantic interoperability through common data exchange standards, common vocab- ularies and taxonomies, 5) technical enablers such as secure networks and infrastructure, 6) collaborative governance mechanisms, 7) motivations, benefits, and public value, 8) Access to authentic sources to improve data quality, 9) trust and transparency, 10) data protection and privacy, and 11) citizen-centred design.
The research stressed that barriers and enablers of OOP implementations form linked concepts, i.e. a barrier indicates a lack (or absence) of what is, in the positive formulation, an enabler. For example, a barrier at political level was identified in SCOOP4C as the
“lack of political commitment to enforce and implement fully digital procedures in student exchange across Europe” while the complementary enabler would be a “strong political
evidenced existing good practice cases and enablers in different Member States. How- ever, the diffusion of OOP solutions is still scarce, especially at cross-border levels of OOP solutions. Further research and efforts from the side of government actors are needed to successfully implement the OOP across borders. The TOOP project provides a great federated architecture [28,44] for enabling the provision of OOP solutions across borders. This architecture is picked up and further developed in the DE4ALL project [8].
However, as the analysis of good practices has shown, the success of the OOP imple- mentation depends on many different enablers. Putting such enablers in place demands further considerable effort along a holistic perspective on public service design and implementation with the OOP.
Some further general insights from the above research can be summarized as follows:
• While strategic policies in Europe extensively promote digitalization, networked sys- tems and interoperability, digital transformation in practice and with the OOP as underlying paradigm is considerably lagging behind these visions.
• While OOP visions are promoted to create awareness of the potentials and bene- fits, these activities are not necessarily reaching out to those that in the end have to implement the OOP solutions.
• In particular, top-down implementation of digitalization needs to urgently be com- plemented with bottom-up engagement of relevant stakeholders by employing e.g.
co-creation concepts, stakeholder engagement and similar to involve the relevant stakeholders in such digital transformations.
• Attempts of bottom-up stakeholder engagement to realize interoperable cross-border public services need be complemented with qualitative research to systematically and rigorously understand barriers and challenges of actors in digital public service provisioning and to design OOP solutions that meet the users’ expectations.