FUE: personalised, proactive, digital services for businesses and professionals - Catalonia
City / Region
Catalonia (Spain)
In a nutshell
Adopting a pioneering, wide-ranging vision, in 2011 the Generalitat de Catalunya introduced the first One Stop Shop (FUE) project with the aim of transforming companies’ relations with government, making it digital, simple and based on mutual trust.
In order to offer a single point of contact for relations between companies and professionals and all government authorities, it was necessary to transform the way of acting of all public administrations. The transformation was achieved through a number of multi-year action plans (2011–2014, 2015–2018 and the current plan, 2019–2023) to implement simultaneous organisational, legal and technological actions.
- Organisational: In Catalonia, three levels of government are involved in legalising economic activity (the State, for registering the legal entity; regional government, for legalising the economic activity; and municipal government, for legalising the business premises). Structures and mechanisms for coordination and collaboration between the different figures involved in the FUE had to be established and consolidated.
- Technological: The technological transformation brought about by the FUE project in Catalan Government authorities has been enormous. We have moved from independent and unrelated systems to a single information system that manages all necessary procedures using standardised data, connecting management tools and information repositories and offering all this information to provide companies and professionals with a 360º vision of the information government authorities hold on them, while only having to provide the data once.
- Legal: Ensuring that the transformation of business relations reached all Catalan Government authorities meant changing the legal framework, so that all the authorities involved were given real obligations they had to meet.
What makes the service user-centric?
From the start, the FUE was conceived as a company-centred project, as the environment does not belong to the government but to the company, providing a single area, the Canal Empresa, to obtain information and carry out all the procedures necessary for a company’s activity. Thus, the private area applies the “once-only” principle, whereby companies and the self-employed only have to provide their data once for all procedures with Catalan Government authorities and can unify all their procedures, obtain a 360º vision of their data and manage licences and authorisations for their internal and outsourced collaborators.
This project is in line with the European policy for digital public services, which urges local authorities to provide the tools needed for its implementation. Thus the FUE fulfils the following principles, as listed in the 2017 Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment:
• Digital interaction: we facilitate digital interaction with government authorities for companies, the self-employed, professionals and entrepreneurs.
• Accessibility, security, availability and usability: we provide access to procedures while guaranteeing data security, using open, intuitively-designed channels and complying with all requirements and standards.
• Reduction of administrative burden: simplifying the procedures needed to carry out an economic activity, establishing general criteria for the communication system and restricting authorisations to high-risk cases, thereby cutting waiting times for starting the activity.
• Digital delivery of public services: providing digital delivery for all economic activity procedures with Catalan Government authorities.
• Citizen engagement: participation of companies, the self-employed and intermediaries in designing solutions and validating them in both the test and go-live phases, as pilot tests are carried out in restricted environments to ensure they run smoothly.
• Incentives for digital service use: the use of digital services greatly shortens waiting times for starting a business, thus reducing costs, while a regulation has also been passed establishing the obligation to ensure digital relations.
• Protection of personal data and privacy: government has a legal framework for ensuring data privacy and protection.
• Redress and complaints mechanisms: the system includes a specific mechanism to protect companies from government authorities imposing excessive obstacles.
This project is in line with the European policy for digital public services, which urges local authorities to provide the tools needed for its implementation. Thus the FUE fulfils the following principles, as listed in the 2017 Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment:
• Digital interaction: we facilitate digital interaction with government authorities for companies, the self-employed, professionals and entrepreneurs.
• Accessibility, security, availability and usability: we provide access to procedures while guaranteeing data security, using open, intuitively-designed channels and complying with all requirements and standards.
• Reduction of administrative burden: simplifying the procedures needed to carry out an economic activity, establishing general criteria for the communication system and restricting authorisations to high-risk cases, thereby cutting waiting times for starting the activity.
• Digital delivery of public services: providing digital delivery for all economic activity procedures with Catalan Government authorities.
• Citizen engagement: participation of companies, the self-employed and intermediaries in designing solutions and validating them in both the test and go-live phases, as pilot tests are carried out in restricted environments to ensure they run smoothly.
• Incentives for digital service use: the use of digital services greatly shortens waiting times for starting a business, thus reducing costs, while a regulation has also been passed establishing the obligation to ensure digital relations.
• Protection of personal data and privacy: government has a legal framework for ensuring data privacy and protection.
• Redress and complaints mechanisms: the system includes a specific mechanism to protect companies from government authorities imposing excessive obstacles.
What impact has the service had?
In the preparation of the regulatory framework, it was calculated that the FUE project and the forecasts established by this new legal framework benefit 564,000 companies and 362,000 self-employed people in the country, generating a total saving of 44.4 million euros per year.
How was the service co-created?
One of the keys to the success of the FUE project has been the collaborative work with all the actors involved. Both in the process of drawing up and approving the Law and the Decree that implements it and in the design of the technological solutions, we have worked together with numerous agents of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Provincial Councils, city councils, municipal associations, but also with the institutions representing companies and professionals, guilds, professional associations, chambers of commerce, industry and shipping, unions,... Therefore, we can say that the FUE project does not only put the customer at the center, but the client jointly leads the design and implementation of the services he needs with the administration.
