Benchmarking Dashboard BETA

Helsinki

Enablers

1.1 - Skills

Does the local authority have internally any position such as service designers OR user researchers OR user experience experts?
Evidence: The city has currently 24 internal service designer positions across the organization.
Yes
Has the local authority provided training on service design or user research to its employees in the last three years?
Evidence: 'Experiment Accelerator' -programme, where any employee of the city may suggest an experiment and get 10 000 € budget, training and a consultant partner to execute the idea. Fourth time organizing the programme, year 2022 theme is 'user experience and fluency of work'. 10 ideas will be funded, and the teams will include 30-50 employees. https://kokeilukiihdyttamo.hel.fi/processes/asiakaskokemus-ja-tyon-sujuvuus-2022 Digital training path for user experience 'playbook': https://pelikirja.hel.fi/ (only in finnish) No data available of the playbook usage. No data available of other trainings.
Yes
Has the local authority provided training on ICT to its employees in the last three years?
Evidence: All employees must take mandatory ICT security course. ICT trainings widely available, with thousands of participants each year. Strong assumption is that each city employee has participated in at least one ICT training during the past three years. Departments also organize trainings independently, so exact numbers are not available.
Yes
Has the local authority provided training on ICT to citizens in the last three years?
Evidence: City libraries organize ICT trainings & support, especially for eldery & immigrants: https://www.helmet.fi/fi-FI/Tapahtumat_ja_vinkit/Tapahtumat?t=Opastukset%20ja%20kurssit
Yes

1.2 - Strategies

Does the local authority have a digital strategy less than three years old?
No
Does the local authority have a position of Chief Digital Officer or equivalent?
Evidence: Chief Digital Officer since 2018 / https://digi.hel.fi/yhteystiedot/
Yes
Does the local authority have formal service standard (like for instance the UK Government Digital Service standards)?
Evidence: The city has implemented it's own standard for customer-centric and agile development, described in the digital service development playbook pelikirja.hel.fi
Yes
Does the local authority have design guidelines valid across departments, including for instance standards or protocols for simple language?
Evidence: Brand and Design guidelines (taking into account accessibility, such as contrast, easy to read fonts, user experience) https://brand.hel.fi/en/ + the aforementioned 'pelikirja' https://pelikirja.hel.fi/ (only in finnish) Accessibility Guide of the city: https://www.hel.fi/static/hki4all/ohjeet/saavutettavuus-opas.pdf (only in finnish) Helsinki Design System: pre-built components for digital services for unified design https://hds.hel.fi/
Yes
Does the local authority have in place formal methods to monitor and enforce such service standards and design guidelines?
Evidence: The ICT and digital service procurement contracts of the city are managed with one-stop-shop model, meaning that anyone in the city doing development must pass their plans through this centrally managed procurement. The procurement unit has 'development support' service, in which they check the development plans, including following standards and service design guidelines, acceccibility and co-creation methods prior continuing with the procurement.
Yes
Are service design or user experience mentioned in digital strategy or some other strategy level document?
Evidence: City strategy 2021-2025 pg. 36 "Design will play a more systematic role in a customer-oriented renewal of our services and our efforts to enhance city organisation productivity."
Yes

1.3 - Ecosystem

Does the local authority provide APIs to other administrations and to private companies?
Evidence: Open APIs to Helsinki systems are described in Helsinki Region Infoshare service: https://hri.fi/data/en_GB/dataset?q=api&sort=score%20desc,%20metadata_modified%20desc and an API catalogue is under construction. Official systems have API endpoints to government services and other external partners, and APIs are the primary back-end interface between systems.
Yes
Does the local authority use standardised services modules, provided at national or European level (e.g. CEF building blocks, national payment service or eID)?
Evidence: Official e-services require suomi.fi eID.
Yes
Has the local authority carried out within the last two years innovative forms of procurement, such as pre-commercial procurement, hackathons, other forms of collaboration with SMEs and startups?
Evidence: 'Experiment Accelerator' programme, where small innovative experimental projects are funded for 10000 €, allowing variety of providers to participate in the procurement. See more: https://kokeilukiihdyttamo.hel.fi/en In addition, the city owns a innovation company Forum Virium Helsinki, which collaborates with companies and startups on innovative initiatives for urban futures. The projects examples include drone delivery, accessibility mapping and citizen digital skills. See more: https://forumvirium.fi/en/
Yes

User-Centricity Performance

2.1 - Co-creation

Does the local authority habitually (as standard practice on every new digital service) use service co-design / user research sessions in developing its services before their launch?
Evidence: All digital services must pass through the procurement unit and their development support service, which ensures that service design, co-creation and co-creation practices are followed. Read more on co-creation practices from https://osallistu.helsinki/en/for-professionals/participation/
Yes
Does the local authority habitually carry out users' research sessions on a regular basis (at least once a year) AFTER the launch of a service?
No
Does the local authority habitually use specific service co-design / user research sessions with disadvantaged communities (e.g. minorities, elderly, disabled people, etc.)?
Evidence: We for example follow the CLEAR protocol for co-creation: https://www.governanceinstitute.edu.au/magma/media/upload/media/484_clear_sept061.pdf Helsinki accessibility model https://saavutettavuusmalli.hel.fi/en/ enforces including disadvantaged communities habitually at least to the end-user testing phase of new services. User-research sessions are organized habitually in e.g. eldery care units.
Yes
Does the local authority habitually use web analytics and other service data to improve digital services (e.g. completion rates and most frequent errors)?
Evidence: The city has a specific user research platform with volunteer citizens participating in A/B and other testing protocols for digital services. In addition, standard web analytics are collected and analysed and service-specific user experience surveys collected habitually. Summary of web analytics (in finnish): https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/fi/kaupunki-ja-hallinto/tietoa-helsingista/tietoa-hel-fista/tilastot-ja-tutkimukset
Yes
Does the local authority habitually plan for releasing regular (at least once a year) new releases for existing digital services (not including technical updates automatically provided by software provider)?
Evidence: The city digital services are continuously developed following agile & DevOps development principles.
Yes

2.2 - Supply of online services

Does the local authority provide the majority of services fully online (out of total services provided that could potentially be digitalised)?
No
Does the local authority have a dedicated app that is downloaded by more than 20% of the population?
No
Does the local authority offer at least one proactive service, where users are automatically signed up for a service based on the government-held data?
No
Has the local authority already fulfilled the requirements of the Single Digital Gateway (deadline end of 2022)?
Evidence: Majority of the Single Digital Gateway requirements consider and are responsibility of government in Finland, and are fulfilled by Suomi.fi e-identity and service database and catalog, which allows connecting local services and citizen data to european service providers and access to government and municipal offices and services to european citizens. All Helsinki services are descibed in Suomi.fi service catalog where applicable (see https://www.suomi.fi/). Some services may require finnish social security number that retrieved from the Suomi.fi identity service. Non-finnish citizens may apply for a finnish social security number on certain conditions.
Yes
Does the local authority provide habitually to citizens the possibility to check online the progress status of the services they request?
No

2.3 - Useability

Does the local authority habitually carry out useability assessment of its online services, using standard tools such as System Useability Scale (SUS)?
Evidence: Usability of Helsinki digital services is habitually assessed. Raports are not available online.
Yes
Do all the websites or websites sections of the local authority have consistent design and look&feel?
Evidence: Design guidelines: brand.hel.fi Dev guidelines: https://helsinkisolutionoffice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OS/overview Design components including software packages for web pages, buttons, menus etc. https://hds.hel.fi/
Yes
Does the local authority provide the possibility to citizens to have live audio/video interaction (such as videoconference or single telephone number)?
Evidence: For all services there is a number you can call. Video call option depends on the service, but is available for example in some healthcare and unemployment services. Contact information available in main page https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/participate/contact and in website of each department, unit and service.
Yes
Are the local authority web services in line with accessibility guidelines (WCAG)?
Evidence: The helsinki design system building blocks have been desinged to comply with accessibility requirements (contrast, colours, languages, text size etc.). Accessibility is assessed habitually in development processes. Helsinki accessibility guide for web services in compliance with WCAG: https://www.hel.fi/static/hki4all/ohjeet/saavutettavuus-opas.pdf Helsinki accessibility model: https://saavutettavuusmalli.hel.fi/en/
Yes

2.4 - Security and privacy

Are the users able to use national eID, as a means of authentication for online services requiring authentication?
Evidence: Helsinki digital services requiring authentication use national Suomi.fi identification.
Yes
Has the local authority put in place measures to ensure citizens' control over the data held about them (such as seeing who has access to the data and for what reason, correcting data, etc.)?
Evidence: Helsinki has launched a MyData service where citizens can authorize or de-authorize use of their data. The service is new, and use cases will be added as services are developed. The citizens can file a request on their data and processing action logs for any service, digital or not.
Yes
Has the local authority in place documents on measures, practices or procedures on ICT security?
Evidence: Internal documents, public documentation and instructions in hel.fi on privacy, data protection & cybersecurity: https://www.hel.fi/en/decision-making/information-on-helsinki/data-protection-and-information-management/data-protection, https://turvallisuus.hel.fi/en/information-security/
Yes

2.5 - Citizens redress and feedback mechanisms

Does the local authority provide online mechanisms for both citizens and businesses to complain and seek change to a decision?
No
Has the local authority put in place structured means for users to provide feedback?
Evidence: The city communications manages a joined feedback and maintenance call service for the whole city organization: https://palautteet.hel.fi
Yes

2.6 - Interoperability

Does the local authority apply the once-only principle in its services, so that citizens are not required to submit documents already held by the administration?
Evidence: Most Helsinki services utilize registration with national identity. Documents submitted for a service are available for the use of the same service for as long as required unless removed by the user. The new mydata service allows sharing some data and documents between city services, e.g. drivers licence. The interoperability of public sector is rather good in Finland, for example if income information is required, the city can retrieve it directly from tax office on the permit of the citizen.
Yes
Does the local authority encourage the use of standards in IT development and procurement?
Evidence: Helsinki has software development standards described in dev.hel.fi / https://helsinkisolutionoffice.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OS/pages/7737901085/Koodausstandardit+coding+standards?src=search , in addition divisions and services may have their own stards for IT development and procurement.
Yes
Has the local authority policies in place to encourage the use of open source solutions?
Evidence: All software developed for the city of helsinki (websites, algorithms etc.) is published open source unless there is a case against, e.g security or privacy. Codebase available at: https://github.com/City-of-Helsinki
Yes

Outcome

3.1 - Adoption

Considering only services that are available online, are the majority of transactions carried out online?
NA
Does the local authority publish data on usage of online services (such as a dashboard with metrics on transactions) on a regular basis?
Evidence: Data on service usage available through HRI open data service / Helsinki statistical yearbook: https://hri.fi/data/en_GB/collection/helsingin-tilastolliset-vuosikirjat
Yes

3.2 - Reduction of burden

Does the authority measure the average time saved by citizens when using an online service compared to the offline one?
No
Does the authority measure the amount of annual financial savings for the public administration?
Evidence: https://www.hel.fi/static/kanslia/Julkaisut/2022/helsinki-tilinpaatos-2021.pdf
No

3.3 - Satisfaction

Does the local authority measure the citizens’ level of satisfaction with regards to the services’ provision?
Evidence: The departments and individual services measure customer satisfaction. Common tools include nps, and various tailored open- and numerical questions. General ways for user involcement, collecting user feedback & customer co-creation are gathered on the page https://osallistu.helsinki/en/for-citizens/ways-to-participate/
NA
Is the share of satisfied users above 80%?
NA

Background Information

665000
Total population
37500
Total number of employees in the city/region administration
3 600 000 000
Total annual budget (last year or average of the last three years)
300
Number of ICT specialists employed directly (full-time equivalent)
800
Number of ICT specialists employed indirectly (subcontracting/outsourcing)