IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The National Growth Fund must ensure that the prosperity of the Netherlands is also guaranteed for the future. TU/e plays an important role in this, as was demonstrated when the grants were awarded in the second investment round just before Easter. No fewer than ten projects involving researchers from our university were rewarded. In a series of articles we highlight the four projects with our greatest contribution. Today’s focus is on the Data Driven Mobility and Smart City Ecosystem project (DEMS), a new data infrastructure to be built that will enable us to regulate mobility in our cities even more intelligently.

Dutch cities are growing. That is why the government must take a good look at the layout of these cities, and make smart use of the space that is (still) available. This is no easy task; various aspects must be taken into account, such as safety, accessibility, liveability and health.

Appealing against a decision or the consequences of a decision made by a provincial government has long been possible in the Netherlands. Gelderland, a province of in the central eastern part of the country, now offers the pioneering service by which citizens can make appeals via an eForm available at its website by using their DigiD to log in.

Using geo-standards will make it easier and more efficient for parties in the public sector and outside to find, share and use geographical information. Geographical information plays an increasingly important role in daily life, in usages such as weather maps and route planners. The public sector needs geographical information for such tasks as town planning.

The government is planning to simplify unnecessary regulations and cut down on bureaucratic red tape, saving nearly €110 million. This will give businesses the space to innovate and invest. The government's goal is to create the preconditions for an ‘excellent business climate’, which can be achieved by large-scale implementation of ICT applications, such as Standard Business Reporting, eRecognition and the entrepreneurs’ record. This allows entrepreneurs to leverage ICT and use public services more easily. Another measure is to improve the services provided to entrepreneurs via the so-called Entrepreneur Centres.

Nearly three-quarters of the Dutch population aged 12 years or older accessed government websites in 2017. This share was 4 percentage points lower in the previous year. Dutch people used these sites mainly to look up information, according to the latest figures from the survey ‘ICT usage in households and by individuals’ conducted by Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

In 2017, 73 percent of the Dutch population visited a government website, equivalent to around 10.7 million people. Government websites include, amongst others, municipal sites relating to civil affairs or sites of tax authorities, web pages for submitting address changes, looking up information on social facilities or everything regarding documents such as passports, driving licences and marriage or birth certificates.

The services of the MyGovernment portal include a secure mailbox for communications from the public sector, information on the user's business with the Government, and a record of the user's personal data held by the Government. The site is designed to save citizens time and effort and to save the Government a substantial amount in postage costs.

While the government aims for all public services to be available online by 2017, the ombudsman's report found that some citizens are not benefiting from the increasing digitisation. A significant group report problems using digital services, and trust in e-government is limited. Citizens also report problems finding out what information the government is using or how to correct errors encountered in digital services.

The Government has vast amounts of information covering such matters as the environment, buildings, population and infrastructure. Much of this information is open data, which means that it is freely available to anyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other control methods.

Die Einsparmöglichkeiten durch den Einsatz von freier Software seien nur sehr gering, zu diesem Ergebnis kommt der niederländische Rechnungshof und gelangt damit zu einer deutlich anderen Einschätzung als eine Studie des Innenministeriums. Die niederländische Regierung gibt insgesamt 2,1 Milliarden Euro im Jahr für Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik aus. Davon entfielen lediglich 170 Millionen Euro auf Wartungskosten und 88 Millionen Euro auf Lizenzkosten, für die es freie Alternativen gebe - so die Studie des Rechnungshofes. Dem gegenüber stehen Einsparungen von bis zu einer Milliarde Euro pro Jahr, die in dem Bericht des Innenministeriums erwogen wurden.

Firmen mit proprietären Produkten nutzten ihre Stellung aus und hielten die Preise dafür künstlich hoch, heißt es in einer Studie des niederländischen Innenministeriums. Allein durch den Wechsel zu freier Software könnte die öffentliche Verwaltung des Landes daher zwischen 500 Millionen und einer Milliarden Euro pro Jahr einsparen. Die Studie wurde 2010 im Rahmen einer Erneuerung von 11.000 Arbeitsplätzen durchgeführt. Betrachtet wurden hierbei die Anschaffung und laufenden Kosten von proprietären Betriebssystemen, Office und E-Mail-Anwendungen, sowie einer Groupware-Lösung.

The IJsselland Hospital, which has more than 100 medical specialists, 1 500 employees and 220 volunteers, selected the OS software OpenERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for the internal ordering system. This selection was made due to the fact that as an OS system, and in contrast to commercial systems, OpenERP has the flexibility to be applied to the hospital's processes. Its low implementation costs and lack of licensing also played a part in the decision.

A programme in the Netherlands is creating a smart neighbourhood as a pilot for how people could live in the future

A neighbourhood in the Netherlands is to be transformed in a pilot project to design the urban environment in conjunction with new smart technologies for transport, health and energy.

The locality, in Brandenvoort, will be a testing ground for new products, services and systems through the Brainport Smart District (BSD) project.

This system combines data from local fire services, municipalities and national and regional governmental organisations and transmits the results to the fire trucks en route, which then use it to plan their best approach to the emergency case.

For the past five years, The Hague has been testing smart technologies in an urban environment. Some applications proved successful, others less so.

The municipality of The Hague has published a white paper outlining lessons learned from the Scheveningen Living Lab. Over the past five years, the city has tested smart technologies in an urban setting.

E-health services still have a long way to go in the Netherlands before achieving their stated aims, according to a study by Nivel, a healthcare research institute, in cooperation with Nictiz, an expertise centre on healthcare standards. The survey found that around 10 percent of chronically ill patients could access their medical information with care providers over the internet in the past year. Many were not aware of the opportunities for accessing such information online, Nivel said. The Dutch health ministry targets 80 percent of chronic patients and 40 percent of all the Dutch to have access to online medical information within five ears.

The findings of this study, 'Ctrl Alt Delete: Lost productivity Caused by IT Problems and Inadequate Digital Skills at Work' (currently available in Dutch language only), highlight that, on average, workers in the Netherlands spend almost 8 % of their day trying to resolve issues relating to the use of technology in the workplace - with this figure rising to 10 % for lower-skilled workers.

The Minister said: “In four years time everyone will be able to handle their administrative matters electronically. The government will reduce the paper communication with citizens and businesses as much as possible. In 2017 not only the government but also provinces, water boards, municipalities and government agencies will switch from paper communication to digital. The use of a personal and secure email box mijn.overheid.nl will therefore be strongly encouraged.”