Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure for open digitisation and agile public services

Barcelona
Barcelona Ciutat Digital
City Council
Digital Plan
A government measure
for open digitisation:
free software and agile
development of public
administration services
The Open Digitisation Programme from Barcelona City

Council’s Office for Technology and Digital Innovation
This Guide was prepared by a team led by Francesca Bria,

the Commissioner for Technology and Digital Innovation. Its
members included Francesca Bria, Paco Rodríguez, Malcolm
September 2017
Bain, Joan Batlle, Ana Bastide Vila, Xabier Barandiaran Fernán-

dez, Marius Boada Pla, Guillem Marpons, Xavier Roca Vilalta,
Xavier Bes Segovia, Josep Carles Collazos, Joan Domènech
Bas, Oscar Sanz García, Carlos Echevarría Mesegur, LLuis Giro-
na Frisach, Anna Majó Crespo, Tomás Gea Calza, Javier Ruiz,
Gemma Galdon, John Mi- chaelides, Esther Bretschneider.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................. 3
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION AND JUSTICATION
FOR THE MEASURE ...................................................................... 6
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE MEASURE ................................................... 7
3. GOVERNING THE DIGITISATION PROCESS .................................... 8
4. CONTEXT ............................................................................... 9
5. THE OPEN DIGITISATION
AND AGILE SERVICE- DELIVERY PROGRAMME .................................. 15
6. THEMES AND OBJECTIVES ......................................................... 20
7. LINES OF ACTION ..................................................................... 26
8. FLAGSHIP PROJECTS WITHIN
THE COURSE OF ACTION .............................................................. 30
9. SUCCESS METRICS AND RESULTS ................................................ 33
10. IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE ................................................... 35
11. BUDGET ................................................................................ 36
12. ANNEXES ............................................................................... 37
Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

free software and agile development of public administration services
Executive
Summary
In September 2016, Barcelona City Council tal Transformation Plan, is the impetus behind
embarked on an important digital transforma- technical innovation and excellence focused
tion process announcing that public services on the delivery of results. In addition, this pro-
must be provided through digital channels from gramme promotes a culture of innovation,
the outset, following new guidelines oriented transparency and continuous development
towards citizens and the use of open standards throughout the whole of the City Council, em-
and open software and in accordance with an phasising:
ethical data strategy that puts privacy, trans-
parency and digital rights at the forefront. · The promotion of the development and
delivery of agile, open and ethical digital ser-
The decision taken by the city government vices.
is based on the Barcelona Digital City Plan,
a government measure approved in October · The promotion of the development of
2016 and new Spanish Law 39/2015 on Com- internal design skills and capabilities focusing
mon Administrative Procedures for Public Au- on users and agile methodologies, for the pur-
thorities. This Law states that by 2020, digital poses of regaining control of digital services.
channels must take priority in the provision
of public services in the Spanish State. The · Opening up public procurement, making
Barcelona Digital City Plan establishes a ra- it more transparent, simple and objective,
dical improvement in digital public services while reducing the bureaucracy involved. Inno-
as one of its main objectives, with the aim of vation in the procurement processes will also
providing services to citizens on a 24/7 basis enable diversification in technology providers.
that are of higher quality and better adapted
to their needs. · The creation, through a digital market
platform, of a diversified group made up of
The Municipal Institute of Information Tech- expert local providers.
nology (IMI) is instrumental in enabling this
transformation to be carried out. In 2016, · The promotion of the use of agile me-
Barcelona City Council created a Digital thodologies in digital services, both internally
Transformation Committee, and the IMI put and in provider relations.
together a group for the promotion of Digital
Transformation made up of professionals from · The revision of procurement procedures
various technological areas. Both of these for technology assets and services to reinforce
mechanisms were set up to drive and govern technological and data sovereignty.
this important process.
· The use of free and open source softwa-
The Open Digitisation Programme: Free re in municipal systems, except in exceptional
Software and Agile Development of Services, and justified circumstances.
created by the Commissioner and the IMI in
October 2016, following the launch of the Digi-

3 free software and agile development of public administration services
· The establishment of technological and their implementation will be developed in
practices based on open architectures and a new government measure on the Strategy for
standards. Responsible and Ethical Use of Data in Barce-
lona City Council, where its technical details,
This government measure provides an processes and responsibilities will be detailed.
overview of the transformation programme
and the proposed incremental changes. It This government measure also explains how
sets forth the structure how the transforma- agile development methodologies will be
tion will be governed, its eminently practical applied in Barcelona City Council, by trans-
orientation, based on establishing clear mea- forming vertical product teams into agile ser-
sures and specific deliverables, and provides vice-orientated work groups through flagship
a shared roadmap. projects. That is why the IMI is putting an Agile
Technical Office and an agile projects team
The measure will provide savings in resources into operation.
and more efficiency through the implementa-
tion of agile processes, while providing citizens From a purely technological perspective,
with the tools they need to interact with the the objective is to create a public and open
local authority more efficiently. Through open ecosystem and infrastructure composed of
data management and the use of free software interoperable and reusable applications and
tools, we will be guaranteeing universal ac- services. So, the way in which the public autho-
cess, improvements in transparency and laying rity operates must be changed through the use
the foundations for new initiatives based on of open standards and free and open source
harnessing data and creating a network of software, by implementing open, public and
open source experts that will make the local well-documented application-programming
authority more resilient and independent. interfaces (APIs) that provide access to the
City Council’s open data for the purposes of
This measure focuses on the delivery of agile enabling the ICT sector, and even other au-
digital services, the process for accomplishing thorities, to collaborate with the City Council
technological sovereignty and the migration to to deliver agile, open and ethical applications
free and open software and open standards. and digital services.
The annexes to this government measure con- The services which will be first to benefit from
tain documents that define the main standards these changes include: the new citizen help
and give guidelines for the core areas in the and information portal, mobile phone services
programme. for citizens, the new calendar of events and
facilities in the city, the open city dashboard
These documents include: for citizens, the technology providers portal
and the new mobile digital identity service.
• The Digital Services Standard.
• The Code of Technological Practices. The formation of new agile teams will enable
• Agile Methodologies of Barcelona City us to acquire the capabilities we need and
Council. to develop a recruitment plan and an inter-
• Technological Sovereignty Guide. nal-skills creation programme for promoting
• Details of the Migration Plan to Open this transformation. At the same time, internal
Source. capabilities will be complemented with skills
• Public Procurement of Technology Guide. and services provided by the most innovative
companies in the sector, brought in by the City
The responsible and ethical use of data is a key Council, through innovative procurement and
element within Barcelona City Council’s Digital the creation of a digital procurement platform.
Transformation Plan, especially the Open Data
and Data Commons strategies, “Data Driven” Digital transformation and innovation are
projects and interoperability based on open not a destination or point of arrival but
data formats. The corresponding directives rather a journey, an endless process, where

steps are repeated one after the other until The Agile Transformation Programme itself
the desired result is reached. Digital products is continuously evolving and our ambition is
and services and their interfaces are evolving, to go ahead and do far more than what this
like a living organism, in accordance with the government measure states, as it only esta-
needs of citizens and changes in technology. blishes the bases for a process of continuous
viu, d’acord amb les necessitats dels ciutadans improvement.
i el canvi tecnològic.

1 Introduction
and justification
for the measure
The digital era is making profound and rapid performance and costs, which the City Council
changes to our society and, as a result, the must take advantage of.
model of citizens’ relations with companies
and public authorities. By bringing together It is along these lines that the measure opens
digital transformation, citizen participation up public procurement and makes it more
and transparency we are obliged to change the transparent, simple and objective, by crea-
models used by public bodies so that they have ting the right conditions for participation
the capacity to adapt to the new needs that from a diverse set of local-industry talent
are created. This transformation represents and encouraging the country’s small and me-
a great challenge for the City Council, with dium-sized businesses. Likewise, the current
activities that are highly regulated by legal, procurement processes are being reviewed
economic and human resource requirements. to ensure technological and data sovereign-
ty. Procurement procedures must also be
The Open Digitisation Programme: Free Sof- transformed for the purposes of bringing
tware and Agile Development of Services at them into line with the reality of the services
Barcelona City Council aims to provide gui- offered to the public and making it possible
delines focused on service delivery and te- for these measures to be applied.
chnological sovereignty in order to revitalise
the entire municipality, by consolidating the To achieve the main objective and transform
governance of digital services, by genera- Barcelona City Council into a leading entity in
ting profiles and capabilities in free and open the digitisation of the public sector, we will have
source software and the ethical use of data to define the steps to be followed for advancing
and by transforming public procurement. The and building “digital by default” public services
implementation of this approach, based on in Barcelona that are more open, simple, mo-
agile methodologies and the use of open te- dular, interoperable and which aim to prevent
chnologies, has demonstrated efficiency in blockages with proprietary solution providers.

2 Objectives
of the measure
The measure sets out the Barcelona City in the future, to ensure technological and data
Council’s Open Digitisation: Free Software sovereignty.
and Agile Service Development Programme.
6. Establishing an open architecture and
This measure focuses on giving the City Coun- practices based on open standards.
cil the ability to rapidly develop digital services
centred on the real needs of citizens, achie- 7. Revising procurement processes so that
ving technological independence based on these objectives and innovations can be incor-
free software and the use of open standards, porated into relations with the industrial sector.
making data from Public Authorities available
to citizens so that they bring them more va- 8. Improving access to the authority’s
lue, and ensuring that they can access these data, respecting privacy and evaluating the
services by safeguarding their right to privacy. ethical risks of smart cities and large databa-
ses, including legal compliance with data pro-
1. Focusing on a user-centred digital ser- tection regulations, by establishing an ethical
vices model and greater collaboration to gene- code of technological practices and defining a
rate more value using the same resources. data strategy.
2. Broadening and expanding agile me- 9. Developing new technology-acquisition

thodologies for the construction of new digital guidelines that will be integrated into the ge-
public services. neral framework of public contracts as well as
followed and implemented by all the City Coun-
3. Developing the internal capabilities cil’s public contracts and civil servants.
for the agile management of public services
throughout the City Council. Finally, we will present the flagship projects
through which we will begin to achieve these
4. Opening up public procurement, ma- objectives and implement the new practices
king it more transparent, simple and objective. that are necessary for this.
5. Preferential use of free and open sof-

tware, with the aim of its becoming mandatory

3 Governing the
digitisation
process
This transformation constitutes a lengthy pro- rities, citizens, businesses and the academic
cess requiring the involvement of the local au- world. The commissioner has an office availa-
thority, as well as the ICT sector and society. ble for monitoring and promoting projects in-
The process must have a specific form of go- tended to ensure municipal coordination and
vernance so that it can meet its objectives and measure the impact of the implementation of
keep to the established schedule. this programme.
Several mechanisms will be used for the gover- • Barcelona Digital Transformation
nance of this process, including, notably, the Commission. This is a transversal municipal
Commissioner for Digital Technology and In- mechanism created to govern the definition
novation, the Barcelona Digital Transformation and implementation of the Digital Transforma-
Commission and the Innovation Committee, tion Plan and ensure its alignment with the City
not to mention other players in the city such as Council’s strategy. Part of its main function for
companies and representatives of civil society. prioritising and coordinating the City Council’s
ICT initiatives will also involve analysing the si-
The main governance methods include: tuation and development of the digitisation
programme and constituting a space for de-
• Commissioner for Digital Technology bate, discussion and proposals among the va-
and Innovation. One of her missions is to go rious municipal areas and sectors.
through a process of redesigning and reorien-
ting Barcelona’s technology and digital innova- • Digital Innovation Committee. This is a
tion strategies and policies through a process cross-cutting municipal mechanism within the
involving the active participation of key players City Council’s various areas, tasked with put-
in the city. Two of the main areas are the digi- ting the design and implementation of the in-
tisation of public services and the promotion novation strategy and policies into operation.
of an innovative digital ecosystem, which in- Its function will be to ensure, among other
cludes the relationship between public autho- things, the involvement and alignment of the
various municipal areas in this process.

4 Context
4.1. Barcelona City Council
Approved in October 2016, the Barcelona Di- fulfilment of fair and efficient public policies
gital City Plan (PBCD) is a cross-cutting Plan geared towards covering better the needs
which aims to guarantee a coherent, standard of citizens and boosting their capabilities, to
technology policy within the City Council, in create greater-quality public services, with
the areas of Government and City, Enterprises the optimum allocation and use of public re-
and Social Entities and Citizens. sources and talent.
The PBCD must ensure that digital techno- Three strategic areas have been defined wi-
logy and innovation act as facilitators in the thin the PBCD, with the following objectives
(Figure 1):
AREAS AREAS
GOVERNMENT Creating a more open and efficient government

AND CITY using technology for transformation and innovation
ENTERPRISE Developing the digital and socio-economic

AND SOCIAL community and the local innovation ecosystem
ENTITIES
CITIZENS Empowering the people
FIGURE 1
The Barcelona City Council’s Digital Transfor- projects for updating technology and adap-
mation Plan (PTDA) is the comprehensive road- ting it to the new legal framework established
map for ICT projects for this term of office, under Act 39/2015 of 1 October, on Common
and for each Manager’s Office, in accordance Administrative Procedures for Public Autho-
with political priorities. This plan also includes rities (LPCAP).

4.2. Legal Framework
Law 39/2015 of 1st October, on Common Ad- is to provide citizens with information on
ministrative Procedures for Public Authorities the actions of regional public authorities and
(LPACAP), which comprehensively promotes control and transparency in the destination
digital administration - not just citizen rela- of public money.
tions but also the electronic management of
administrative procedures, electronic docu- • Act 11/2007, of 22 June, on citizens’
ments and files, interoperability, etc. - defines electronic access to public services, known as
a new legal framework which requires profound LAESCP. In this context, free software, open
changes to be made in the provision of public standards and open source technologies are
services and, as a consequence, in municipal considered the best option for the develop-
organisation and their information systems. ment of a technological model for e-Govern-
ment, tailored to the specific needs and ob-
Note that in addition to compliance with the jectives of public authorities, based on the
LPACAP, we can find other legal texts in the strategic criteria of transparency, control, se-
regulatory context of the EU and in Spanish and curity, interoperability, access and conservation
Catalan legislation that have to be responded to: of information, economics, reuse of data and
cooperation between organisations, which clo-
• The EU eGovenment Action Plan 2016- sed technologies can hardly compete against.
2020, that aims to remove existing digital ba-
rriers to the Digital Single Market and to prevent • Royal Decree 4/2010, of 8 January, re-
further fragmentation arising in the context of gulating the National Interoperability Scheme,
the modernisation of public administrations. which includes the security criteria and recom-
mendations, standardisation and conservation
• The new EU General Data Protection Re- of information, and the formats and applica-
gulation (GDPR), approved in May 2016, which tions that public authorities must take into
the entire public authority must adapt to and account to ensure an appropriate level of or-
comply with. ganisational, semantic and technical interope-
rability for data, information and services that
• Act 19/2014, of 29 December, on trans- they manage in exercising their powers and to
parency, access to public information and prevent discrimination against citizens on the
good government. The aim behind this Act grounds of their choice of technology.
4.3. New Trends in the development of agile digital services,

technological sovereignty and ethical data management
Given the current situation where changes failures experienced with traditional methods
come about at an incredibly fast pace and of project management.
changes within changes are occurring, we
to develop and implement models for digital By “agile methodologies” we mean a group of
services that will help us to adapt to these methods, started under the “Agile Manifesto”
transformations. This is even more the case of 2001, applied to the creation of software
in the information and communication te- that bases its development on an iterative cy-
chnologies (ICT) sector, where speed and cle, where needs and solutions evolve throu-
agility are essential in the face of change. gh collaboration between the various teams
Hence the appearance of agile methodo- involved in the project. Agile methodologies
logies, given the difficulties and occasional promote a disciplined approach to project ma-

nagement that encourages constant revision blic funds into the region while benefiting the
and adaptation to the needs of the users and local economy. Generating a virtuous circle
to the changes. These methods provide an where any SME, cooperative or freelance can
organised system that allows and facilitates offer their services, under equal conditions. In
teamwork and self-organisation and helps to a country where 90% of businesses are either
reduce development times. small or medium-sized, this opens up a large
window of opportunity.
As for technological and data sovereignty, we
can confirm that free software is “technically It also provides freedom to choose the
feasible, economically sustainable and socially municipal management of the IT infrastructure,
fair”1. This is reflected in specific benefits to without the need for expertise in exclusive, hi-
the local authority. gh-cost tools. The public and private jobs gene-
rated will be available to more of the territory’s
• It is technically viable because it allows professionals.
us to reuse existing free software projects, redu-
cing the implementation efforts required to co- • It is socially fair because it guarantees
ver our own needs. Every IT company, regardless the fundamental rights of citizens. Access to
of its size, depends on free software to some the source code and its collective control helps
degree. The fact that the local authority wishes us to know what it does and to ensure that it
to make direct use of this is a logical step. does not have any gateway or security vulnera-
bilities. Data privacy and security are ensured.
The freedom to choose tools also
means the freedom to choose the provider Such benefits either do not exist or requi-
for maintaining and developing them. Wor- re much higher economic and social costs with
king with open formats and standards does proprietary software.
away with the need to depend on large com-
panies and enables permanent access to the Royal Decree 4/2010 (see more in section
information generated. 04.2) has existed since 2010, and makes it
mandatory for Public Authorities to use open
Participating directly in the community formats when sharing information with citi-
provides access to the consolidated knowledge zens. The list of formats is not a choice for each
of other entities, enabling them to contribute public entity, but rather a list of standards that
through documentation, code or shared expe- is specified and regularised for interoperabi-
riences implementing projects in the authority. lity. As such, Public Authorities will use open
standards to guarantee independence in the
• It is economically sustainable becau- choice of technological alternatives made by
se it removes the requirement for user licenses citizens and public authorities, preserving do-
and cuts down on costs. Such a reduction in cuments over time, and adaptation to progress
costs does not mean a loss of quality or securi- in technology.
ty. On the contrary, it can enable projects that
would not be possible with proprietary softwa- Where appropriate, documents, electronic ser-
re, and keep systems up to date and protected vices and applications made available by public
at the lowest possible cost. authorities to citizens and other public authori-
ties will be displayable, accessible and functio-
These cost savings can be reinvested in nally operational, under conditions which su-
suitable hardware for new tools or items that pport the principle of technological neutrality
require additional resources. Thus the local au- and avoid discrimination against citizens on the
thority is showing responsibility towards public grounds of their choice of technology.
money and responsibly managing it.
Data were of little and limited interest until re-
Freedom to select providers without res- cently, although computer processing capaci-
trictions can boost the reinvestment of pu- ties have reached the stage where we can now
1
Jordi Mas in his namesake book (Col•lecció “Manuals i Formularis” [Collection of “Manuals and Formulas”], 15)
harness and reuse data. At the same time, there generate business and social improvement for
has been an exponential growth in the amount the entire population. Combining free tools and
of such data. For security reasons, this situation open data puts us in a whole new ball game,
makes it crucial both to control and release where transparency and a willingness to share
these data, for the purposes of boosting their and work on a community basis create a new
reuse, with the conviction that public data can organisation of public administration.
4.4. Agile methodologies and free software in other public

authorities
AGILE METHODOLOGIES Tax Agency are starting to use and apply agile
While Agile methodologies have mainly been techniques such as Lean Government.
implemented in private enterprise, their use
is not unknown in public administration. Since Barcelona started introducing agile methodo-
20122 the British government Has been pro- logies in 2013 for the development and mana-
moting them, as well as the US Department of gement of municipal websites and it will now be
Defense. A good example is the development the first big city in southern Europe to launch
of a new British service to manage vehicle ins- and implement this type of methodology on a
pections (MOTs). global basis within the City Council.
Closer to home, the Regional Government of

Andalusia in 2010, put out to tender the service
for the development of the website entitled OPEN TECHNOLOGIES
“DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSUMER RESPONDS Regarding experiences in free software at a lo-
WEBSITE”, using the Scrum agile methodology, cal level, public authorities have for a long time
certainly the most popular of the agile metho- now started implementing Open Technology
dologies in software development. In 2010, the policies and deploying free and open-source
regional government of the Canary Islands also based services. Regionally, we have the exam-
put out to tender the maintenance service for ple of the University of Lleida (UDL), which is
the IT records system in the field of tourism a pioneering public university in the use of
using these methodologies. free software in Catalonia, together with the
Open University of Catalonia (UOC). It has been
Vitòria-Gasteiz City Council published an invita- using free systems for years, yielding excellent
tion to tender in 2013, for “the procurement of results. A new team, one of whose goals was to
a redesigned municipal website using adaptive promote the use of free software, took over the
design”. The technical specifications stated vice-chancellor’s office in 2003 and commen-
that the methodology to be used was SCRUM. ced a migration process for all the systems. In
2006, the Generalitat of Catalonia published
March 2017 saw the Provincial Council of Ba- its own Free Software roadmap.
dajoz commence procedures to procure deve-
lopment and implementation services for new The University of Murcia signed up for the Open
functionalities and the technological evolution Academic Environment (OAE) in 2014,an inter-
of its current management applications, also national initiative to create a free software pla-
using the agile SCRUM methodology. tform which allows the development of an open
collaborative academic network. This project
Public-private institutions including the Thys- is headed by the University of Cambridge, and
sen Museum, Hospital Clínic de Sant Carlos the University of Murcia was the first Spanish
in Madrid and its Smart Health Lab and the university to take part in it. The university star-
2
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery
ted migrating its computers to Linux in 2015. action of the European Commission, that pu-
This resulted in savings of €100,000 in user blishes to his own free licence for Public Admi-
licenses and another €300,000 by not having nistrations, the EUPL, and centralises efforts in
to renew equipment. Recently Barcelona City his “Join Up” platform where one finds literally
Council released the code of Sentilo, its sensor hundreds of experiences of migration or de-
data management platform, as free software velopment of free software for the European
and won an EU award for Sharing and Reuse. public authorities.
The government in Brazil launched seve- At an international level, the Brazilian gover-
ral digital-inclusion projects in parallel in nment initiated in parallel several projects of
several areas, based on the installation of digital inclusion in different areas, based in
call centres, whose aim was to reduce di- the establishment of telecentres, the aim of
gital exclusion, increase professional skills, which was to reduce digital exclusion, increa-
distribute free software and increase public se professional capabilities, disseminate free
participation in new technologies. Free sof- software and increase popular participation
tware has played a fundamental role in the in new technologies. Free software has played
creation of these centres and is enabling a fundamental role in the creation of these
those who have just arrived in the digital centres and is allowing that those who are
world to do so with legal software. just arriving in the digital world to do it with
legal software.
On a European level, Germany’s Foreign Ministry
started migrating its 11,000 computers to GNU/ Malaysia’s public administration launched its
Linus and free software applications in 2003. Master Plan on 16 June 2004 to promote, adopt
This enabled a considerable reduction in costs and develop the use of free software in the
compared to those of other ministries. The aims public sector. The Open Source Competen-
are for 230 embassies and consulates around cy Centre (OSCC) went into operation. The
the world to migrate to open technologies. The OSCC became established as a national ben-
Gendarmerie Nationale’s IT team decided to chmark centre for managing and supporting
review their existing Microsoft-based environ- the application of free software within the
ment in 2014 so it could offer a responsible administration. More recently, in December
and profitable service at a national level and 2013, India invested in computers with free
reduce its growing IT infrastructure costs. It software (Ubuntu) for its students. This is one
migrated to OpenOffice and Firefox and its of the most important programmes in the world
PCs were upgraded to Ubuntu. This resulted for government-endorsed laptops, installed on
in savings of 2 million euros annually in license 1.5 million laptop computers.
rights alone as well as a drastic reduction in
hardware expenses. As regards open data and standards, on 23rd
June 2006, the Belgian Council of Ministers
In 2014, Italy chose free software as the first in Brussels approved the decision to require
choice for its public administration. It created all document exchanged between services
a document titled, “Guides for comparative as- provided by the Federal Belgian Government
sessment (of software)”, which teaches people to take place in open and standard formats.
a method to follow to make the right decisions So only OpenDocument (ODF) was expressly
when choosing software. The Italian example is accepted as such a standard in this decision.
very important as it is concerned with not just
regulations but also their implementation. The The Open Data BCN project was created in
guide developed by the Italian Digital Agency 2010 and its portal installed in 2011, the main
was drafted with both the Free Software Foun- objective of which was to take full advantage
dation Europe and representatives from several of the public resources available, displaying
proprietary software companies taking part. information generated or held by public bo-
dies, allowing access to and the reuse of data
Open technology policies for the European for the common good and for the benefit of
public administrations are supported by the the people and entities concerned. Part of

the Barcelona Digital City strategy, the project As we have seen in the examples described
is based on the main international standards above, authorities have been undergoing a
and recommendations, adopting the features process of transformation towards agile me-
of open data by default, quality and quantity thodologies and free software for years. Some
of information, data for everyone, data for of these have already demonstrated clear be-
the improvement of the governance and the nefits, not just in financial savings and mitiga-
promotion of innovation. ting technological obsolescence through the
implementation of free software but also in
improving productivity and adaptation through
agile methodologies.

5 The open digitisation
and agile service-
delivery programme
5.1. Mission statement and principles
Public services currently must be designed to of new innovative technologies and move away
be “digital first”, putting citizens at the centre from big contracts, by creating a new market
of the design process and contributing more for open and collaborative SMEs.
public value. Services must be constructed in a
more agile and open way and must be simpler, What’s more, the programme generates profi-
more modular and more interoperable. At the les and capacities in user-centred design and
same time, we must avoid creating dependen- agile methodologies, to bring the flexibility to
cies on vendors and suppliers of specific pro- and accelerate the development and delivery
prietary solutions, hence the need to promote of these services, while opening public procu-
the development, use and reuse of free and rement and increasing its transparency, simpli-
open source software and open standards. city and objectivity, thereby providing a route
Services must be usable and accessible to to technological and data sovereignty.
everyone, including citizens with low levels
of digital skills and people with disabilities. The programme will establish a framework for
an open architecture and designs based on
The Open Digitisation and Agile Service De- open standards, through a series of incremen-
velopment Programme provides a focus on tal changes with a clear governance structure,
digital services to revitalise the City Council results orientated, with clear measurements
as a benchmark for technical innovation and and indicators and a shared roadmap.
excellence. It will bring quality digital services,
adapted to the needs of citizens and orien- As a starting point, the programme defines the
tated towards safeguarding citizens’ right to basic principles to guide the way for developing
privacy (data privacy), services which, by ma- new services. These principles are contained in
king use of free and open source software and the Decalogue titled “Our Digital Service Stan-
open standards, will end the dependency on dards” (see Annexe 12.1):
proprietary formats, products and solutions
(technological sovereignty). • Multi-disciplinary teams for services:
Setting up a multidisciplinary sustainable team
Digital public services need to become true as- that can design, build and operate a service, led
sets of today’s society, with their reuse made by a qualified senior service manager, that has
possible in other cities. That is why initiatives decision-making responsibilities.
are needed in the area of public procurement
of technology which can foster a more matu- • Beginning with the needs of users:
re approach to the provision of technology to Users’ needs have to be understood and re-
the public sector, by proposing multi-supplier search carried out to develop more knowled-
contracting models that promote competition ge on who the service users are and what this
and diversity of suppliers, enable the adoption means for the service design.

• Using agile development methodolo- ensure there is a service available at the City
gies and iterative building methods. Building Council for digitising these documents.
the service using agile and iterative user-cen-
tred methodologies. • Making a plan for going off-line in case
of unforeseen circumstances. A plan will be
• Reducing the burden on citizens. available in case the digital service is tempo-
Existing information will be used in the muni- rarily down, as users expect an online service
cipal systems during new interactions with ci- to be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
tizens, with interoperation with other public
authorities to gather the required information • Tools, systems and services will be
and avoid having to ask the citizens to provide it evaluated. Assessments will be made to en-
again. Unnecessary documents will be removed sure that the technological code of conduct is
in the digital version of the service and the City followed and the associated technical risks are
Council will ensure that citizens give their con- understood.
sent for their personal documents to be used.
• Reusing the existing infrastructure
• Following the guidelines on visual de- and shared functions as far as possible. A
sign and accessibility. A coherent service will coherent service experience will be created
be built based on the experiences of users of that enables time and resources to be saved
the rest of Barcelona City Council, in terms of by eliminating the need for existing functiona-
existing visual design and accessibility guidelines. lities to be rebuilt.
• Having a plan available for people who • Defining a plan for managing the chan-
need digital assistance. Use of digital services ge for the transition of the service. There
will be encouraged among all users and plans will be continuity service plans to facilitate the
made for people who cannot access digital transition between the current non-digital
services for whatever reason without support. service and the new digital service. Any inte-
As for the provision of essential services, the rruption to citizens’ access to the service has
City Council will need to ensure that it adapts to be avoided.
to citizens who do not have digital devices.
• Feedback and continuous user assess-
• Considering security, privacy and ethi- ment. A plan will be implemented under which
cal aspects. An assessment will be made of we will be continuously open to feedback from
which user data and information will be provi- users and carrying out usability tests to gather
ded or stored in the digital service, taking into users’ opinions continuously and thereby be able
account the level of security, legal obligatoins, to improve the service.
privacy issues and the risks associated with the
service. (consulting with experts if necessary). • Measuring and publishing the service’s
results. Performance indicators of the servi-
• Open source software and open ce will be identified, establishing a reference
standards will be used. Open source softwa- point for each measurement and making a
re and open standards will be used whenever plan for enabling improvements.
possible. Likewise, all new code will be open
source and reusable so that it can be publi- • Making a maintenance and servicing
shed under appropriate licenses. plan for the digital service. There will be a
“response and escalation” plan to minimise ser-
• Having a plan available for digitisation. vice interruption when incidents occur.
We will ensure that all digital services provi-
de citizens with the digital means to produce, Barcelona City Council has published an
sign and authenticate their documents. In the information poster with further details for
event that there are citizens who do not have publishing our digital service standards. This
their own digital resources, we will have to poster can be seen in Annexe 12.1 accompan-
ying this measure.

5.2. Priorities and methods for creating digital services
The following four main action areas have been and ethical use of data and its concrete im-
identified for the purposes of the digitisation plementation.
programme’s optimum development and ob-
taining open, interoperable, ethical and agile This is an internal transformation so the pro-
digital services for the public: cess must be led by the City Council itself,
involving its own staff, working to develop
• Agile methodologies in the delivery of the capacity for acquiring skills and results.
digital services Support will occasionally be necessary from
external experts in the sector who, along with
• Technological Sovereignty (free software training and experience from the new agile
and open standards) team, will provide help in understanding the
skills and competencies that will be needed
• Sovereignty and the responsible use of data in the immediate future. A procurement plan
and a skills-creation programme will be im-
• New public procurement model plemented to meet these needs and keep the
transformation alive. This process will lead to
While the programme is transversal, and major internal involvement.
both the IMI and City units are involved,
each area of action will be led by a different The whole transformation process will be ca-
team. It is based on our services standards rried out under the same agile philosophy. So,
and a new code of technological practices the programme will begin with a discovery
supported by a guide for the introduction stage followed by successive iterations that
of agile methodologies, and a guide for the will gradually allow the new culture and new
transition to free and open source software practices to be introduced.
(software, hardware, systems), The guides on
open public procurement and of innovative New practices will be developed and refined
procurement complete the documentary based on real projects, which we will call exem-
framework supporting the programme. The plary or flagship projects (described in section
next government measure will set out the 08 of this document). The new methodology
management of data for the City of Barcelona will gradually extend to all projects where such
and will express the strategy of responsible practices are applicable.
5.3. The current Situation
The discovery stage in Barcelona City Coun- technologies, agile digital services and public
cil began in September 2016, with support procurement of technology), involving more
from external experts. Four work groups were than 200 representatives of the City and
created in which more than 40 workers from industry. Internally, between April and June
several municipal areas participated. These this year, within the Transformation Plan, four
groups worked for 4 months with help from workshops were organised (tools workshop,
4 external experts to generate a base that management workshop, training workshop
would help to drive change. and an organisation workshop).
Throughout 2017, as many as 3 sessions were In the first quarter of 2017, the agile metho-
held with the sector (free software and open dology was applied to its first real project,

the municipal management dashboard. This a community around a free software pro-
was used for defining the actions for introdu- ject, a place that also aims to be a meeting
cing agile methodologies to the City Council, point where cities and companies can co-
choosing the most appropriate projects to llaborate to enhance the platform, provi-
begin applying them, identifying the necessary de support and develop business around
external support needed and defining the Sentilo. Organisations besides Barcelona
internal training plan and the organisation and currently using Sentilo are: Terrassa, Reus,
necessary tools for new practices. Cambrils, Barcelona Provincial Council,
the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), Barcelo-
Between 2016 and 2017, the City Council na Metropolitan Area (AMB) and the Dubai
launched Decidim.Barcelona and Sentilo, Municipality.
applications that hace been developed as its
own free software. In the field of open data, the Open Data BCN
portal, the open data service of the Barce-
• Decidim.barcelona is the most advan- lona City Council must be highlighted. It is a
ced free software to be developed by multi-language and easy-to-access space,
Barcelona City Council and has enabled where users can find a data set (dataset ca-
one of the biggest open, transparent and talogs) that the Barcelona City Council makes
traceable participatory processes in the available in a reusable way. The information is
world among its citizens in the collective classified into 5 major issues (administration,
construction of the city’s strategic plan. population, territory, economy and company
Its mission is to provide support, open up and city and services), each with its corres-
and broaden participation and democra- ponding sub-themes, allowing filtering. Since
cy in Barcelona in the coming years, by the beginning of July 2017, it has the “reusers”
advancing towards a greater ability for co- section, a community space aimed on the one
llaboration between the City Council and hand at developers, to facilitate the work of
citizens, greater decision-making free- this more technical group in the use of data,
dom for people, with particular emphasis and on the other, “views and applications”, a
placed on the collective dimension, and section that gives visibility to projects carried
ultimately, in creating and delivering so- out with data from the Portal. Barcelona alre-
cial power. Principles that are still in force ady has experience and has started the path
today in many free software communities. indicated by the Digital Transformation Plan,
Decidim is deployed in 9 cities in Catalo- exceeding expected benefits. The moment
nia and the Basque Country, as well as the has come to reinforce and formalize it. This
French Commission for National Debate. measure and its expression through various
documents that are the result of this discovery
• As regards Barcelona’s sensor platform, process, clearly establish the foundations,
Sentilo was fully developed with free standards, and main processes of open digiti-
software and is made available globally zation and the rapid development of services:
through the Sentilo Community. As with
Decidim, this platform is already being • The digital services standard (see Annexe
used in several cities and by various pu- 12.1).
blic authorities and a large number of ci-
ties and companies have also expressed • The code of technological practices (see
their interest in trying it out and creating Annexe 12.2).
technologies that are compatible with
Sentilo. The main objective of Sentilo is • Agile methodologies in Barcelona City Coun-
to provide a functional, interoperable and cil (see Annexe 12.3).
easily extendible platform to every city
in the world that so wants it, by sharing • Technology Sovereignty Guide (see Annexe
public investment in development under 12.4)
the free software model. Sentilo is the
first experience of Barcelona in creating

• Action plan for free and open source sof- and continuously improved throughout the
tware (see Annexe 12.5). process of agile transformation during this
term of office.
• Guide for the public procurement of ICTs:
Technology Acquisition Manual with ethical As indicated above, the guidelines on data
and open clauses (see Annexe 12.6). will be developed through a future specific
measure on the use of data in the City Council,
• Guide for innovative public procurement. giving it the importance it deserves.
The guides, which accompany this government

measure as supporting documents, will be
published as a comprehensive body of work

6 Themes and
objectives
If the objectives of the Open Digitisation: Free • Adopting agile methodologies, introdu-
Software and Agile Service Development Pro- cing an agile work framework
gramme are to be achieved, work must be ca-
rried out to deliver agile digital services centred • • Improving data governance, through a
on users, through three main action areas: new data strategy
• Strengthening technological sovereign- This will be achieved through a series of ac-

ty, through the adoption of free software and tions in each of the areas that make up the
open public procurement programme (Figure 2)
CAPACITY AND CULTURE
DIGITAL SERVICES STANDARD
DELIVERY OF DIGITAL SERVICES
TECHNOLOGICAL AGILE
SOVEREIGNTY METHODS
DATA SOVEREIGNTY
NEW PROCUREMENT MODEL
FIGURE 2

6.1. Agile and user-centred digital services
We need to change the way we design and build Agile digital services form the starting point
new public services, by considering them as for achieving the objectives of this digitisa-
digital from the outset, in other words, “digital tion programme. These services allow citizens,
first”. They need to be designed by putting the businesses and organisations to interact with
citizen at the centre and built in an agile and the city government in an easier, faster and
gradual way to reduce waiting times for their more economical way. These simple, fast and
launches. Municipal workers who are responsi- interactive services will be available at all ti-
ble for the service, as well as citizens, have to mes and anywhere and which will have been
play an active role in the design, construction designed to satisfy the needs of citizens and
and maintenance of these services. This pro- municipal workers. We will develop services
cess of change, inspired by the examples of considered digital from the outset and easily
Anglo-American administrations, will provide adaptable to new needs.
new public services that are better adapted
to the real needs of citizens, while reducing Please consult the Digital Services Standard
development time. (Annex 12.1) as the reference document on
this topic.
6.2. Agile Methodologies
Agile methodologies will provide the tools • Put more focus on the end-user and em-
needed for designing, building and delive- power users in the decision-making process.
ring digital services to citizens and municipal
workers in a flexible and efficient way. • Shorten development time and simulta-
neously improve technical quality.
The introduction of an agile working fra-
mework will require: • Increase the frequency of improve-
ments and implement continuous im-
• The creation of multi-disciplinary teams provements. Deliver more frequently
and reliably, to advance the return on
• An global overview of the entire service investment, and standardise continuous
life-cycle improvement based on short monitoring
and adaptation cycles.
• The gradual introduction of agile me-
thodologies • Put the focus on collaboration and
transparency.
• The involvement of the whole organi-
sation • Increase the orientation towards value
by keeping control of developments, be-
• Carrying out of pilot projects ing more flexible and delivering more va-
lue to end-users.
• Continuous improvement based on
contributions from all the parties. The total budget for the flagship projects in
this area is 7 million euros. The timetable for
Starting from these action lines, as listed in these projects runs from the middle of the
point 07, we will be able to: second quarter of 2017, up to the end of the
second quarter of 2019.

These projects are:
• ASIA.
• Municipal Management Dashboard.
• Municipal Sports Institution’s Informa-
• Citizen Help and Information Portal. tion System.
• Mobile Municipal Services. • E-Government.
• Decidim.Barcelona. The reference document for this topic is the

Barcelona City Council’s Guide to Agile Me-
• Information system for social rights. thodologies (see Annexe 12.3).
6.3. Technological sovereignty and Open Technologies
Barcelona requires technological sovereignty, rantees that citizens are not obliged to use te-
and is decisively tackling the transition to free chnological solutions from specific providers
software and open standards for this purpose. to interact with the Administration.
The best practices in this area are being stu-
died and a migration plan will be designed and • Sovereignty: transparency and inte-
a code of best practices on open technologies roperability greatly reduce dependence on
established to guide internal transformation commercial strategies of manufacturers. The
and promote third-party reuse and sharing of user, in this case the City Council, can decide
software and the development and/or use of with greater freedom what systems to evolve,
shared government solutions. The transition to resize or replace, as well as establish its own
open source software and open standards is policies regarding security, privacy, updates
aimed at reinforcing technological sovereignty and access to systems. In the case of organi-
(see Annex 12.5). zations, sovereignty also fosters control over
their own processes and the generation and
Systems based on free software and open conservation of knowledge.
standards offer multiple benefits:
• Flexibility: systems can be better adap-
• Transparency: the source code can be ted to the needs of users and users, and can
examined and audited by anyone who has su- be adapted and extended as these needs
fficient technical knowledge, without the ex- evolve, without depending on any particular
plicit permission of the developer or the City provider. Not only is development more flexi-
Council. Without this property it is difficult to ble, also the evaluation of alternatives is easier
rely on the neutrality and security of an increa- and cheaper, and the conditions of operation
sing number of governmental and administra- and maintenance can be modified more easily.
tive processes that are implemented through
software, such as voting processes. • Sustainability: interoperability allows
you to replace those parts of the systems that
• Interoperability: the use of open for- need to be renewed without the data being
mats and standards allows different systems, ever useless. Greater sovereignty also implies
possibly from different manufacturers, to work a lower risk of obsolescence of any part of the
together without any legal and technical obs- systems, including hardware. Collaboration
tacles. This opens up possibilities for integra- (between people and entities) that promote
tion between different systems, for example to free licenses can be a great help in making a
reuse data and improve processes. It also gua- system more stable and lasting.

• Efficiency: factors such as the cost sa- The main points we need to work on are:
vings associated with the payment of licenses,
increased competition among suppliers, a • Implementing a migration plan and the
lower risk of obsolescence, and the possibility gradual development of free software.
of sharing costs with other users and entities,
make free and standard-based open sour- • Publishing and sharing Barcelona City
ce software the best option to guarantee the Council’s software and contents under free
efficiency that the law demands from the Ad- software and content licenses.
ministration. The huge base of existing combi-
nable software allows us to reach solutions in • Making changes to public procurement
many domains that are adapted to end users to boost the creation, use and reuse of free
with a low use of resources. and open source software.
• Reliability and security: the indepen- • Requiring the use of open standards
dence from commercial strategies makes for the city’s technology, data and other infor-
users able to demand higher quality services mation.
and take advantage of all the corrections and
improvements provided by a community of • Identifying development and/or migra-
users and developers of each tool. tion opportunities to open architectures and
systems in the short term.
• Innovation: transparency, and a fortu-
nate combination of collaboration and compe- The reference document for this topic is the
tition, make free software an enormously ferti- Guide to Technological Sovereignty (see Annex
le ground for technological, social and process 12.4).
innovation. This production of knowledge di-
rectly benefits producers and users, and indi-
rectly the whole society.
6.4. Responsible Data Strategy
Data are becoming increasingly important for organisational changes, as well as changes
cities because they enable cities to devise to functions and responsibilities, making it
better public policies to combat social dis- necessary to create a position with the City
parities, promote development and improve Council for a data manager or Chief Data
the quality of life for citizens. The exponential Officer (CDO).
growth of data and rapid evolution of techno-
logy promotes new service models to appear The main aspects to be examined further in
and causes profound changes in habits. This this area are:
context requires ICT organisations to take a • New rules for data governance.
flexible but constant approach to adapt and
to how they manage the data they handle. • Open architecture for data.
A new stage has been entered, where data • From data to information, from infor-
are of considerable importance in the mu- mation to city indicators.
nicipal and city environment, and there is a
clear need for defining and operating a new • Ethical and responsible uses of data
municipal government data model that acts for innovation.
with sovereignty and which is cross-cutting
across the entire City Council. This involves • Privacy and sovereignty.

The “Data Directive” for the City will be pu- data management, a Data Office and data
blished with the next government measure managers, etc., and it will also include the
on data management in Barcelona, where processes and obligations for maximum com-
the policy for responsible and ethical data pliance with the regulations for data protec-
management will be established in a trans- tion and improving security.
versal way, with the municipal structure of
6.5. Transformation of Public Procurement of ICTs
As a cross-cutting policy to help the abo- providers but also for citizens and municipal
ve-mentioned objectives and topics to be procurement teams.
achieved, the usual processes and practices
in purchasing technology must be changed New approaches, rules and tools will be de-
to adapt to the agile methodologies to be veloped in order to have:
implemented, to the transition to free sof-
tware and open standards and to the new • Simpler procurement processes.
data strategy.
• Open procurement with more transpa-
The new method for procuring technology rent processes.
will be open, transparent and more agile. It
will extend the range of providers that can • Guides for the procurement of solu-
access it, facilitating the procurement of tions and services based on open tech-
solutions based on open source and open nologies and the development of agile
standards. In addition, it will consider the methodologies.
aspects of data ownership and privacy, while
observing compliance with legal regulations • A digital market platform to facilitate
on data protection, including assessment of access for small and local suppliers.
the ethical risks implied in using data. As a
result, we will have new procurement pro- The reference documents for this topic in-
cesses, technology acquisition guides and clude the Public Procurement of Technology
new digital services not just for potential Guide (see Annex 12.6) and the Innovative
Public Procurement Guide (see Annex 12.7).

6.6. Capability, culture and management
of organisational changes
This transformations will help train and develop ganisational culture) and an service oriented
existing teams, turning them into well-pre- organisational structure, facilitating team co-
pared internal teams with skills and capa- llaboration with prompt support from external
bilities to take full possession of the city’s teams that can complement and enrich the
digital services, data and architectural and knowledge of internal staff while opening up
procurement decisions. new professional opportunities.
These skills and capabilities will be supported Figure 3 below shows the more important
by a series of behaviours and practices (or- results that have already been achieved in
the aforementioned areas:
Technology Code of Practice Technology Buying Handbook

A set of criteria to help Barcelona select A set of guidelines to help Barcelona to
appropriate open technologies and define select appropriate open technologies
the commitments to open source sof- and technology services and thereby
tware, open standards, interoperability, avoid vendor lock-in caused by proprie-
security and transparency. tary solutions and closed architectures.
Data Strategy New Procurement Framework &

An approach to handling the city’s data Digital Marketplace
with ownership, privacy, sovereignty and A new procurement instrument optimized
ethical use & innovation at the core. De- for buying agile services from pre-evaluated
fines a city-scale data architecture and suppliers. This will allow more efficient pro-
infrastructure for Barcelona. curement cycles and reduce supplier risk.
Digital Service Delivery Standard Capability Plan & Hiring

A set of criteria to help Barcelona create A proposal to develop and maintain
and run good & agile digital services. Ser- the skill and capabilities required for
vices will be consistent and of high quality. delivering digital services and a sta-
ffing approach for securing new skills
in the short term.

7 Lines
of action
Lines of action have been established for each which will be elaborated upon below, together
of the topics mentioned in the previous section with their associated actions.
7.1. Agile and user-centred digital services

The introduction of agile development metho- • We will focus more on the end-user, giving
dologies is essential for the development of them a leading role in decision-making.
user-centred digital services.
• We will reduce development times and si-
The following actions were carried out during multaneously improve technical quality.
the first quarter of 2017:
• We will offer more public value while main-
4 workshops were organised (tools, agile ma- taining control of the developments.
nagement, skills acquisition, culture and orga-
nisation) with internal employees from the IMI, Based on the lines of action identified, we will
developers, service managers, sectoral managers be able to:
and directors.
• Transform the organisational culture,
By implementing these methodologies, we will promoting collaboration and transparency,
achieve the agreed lines of action: while being more flexible and delivering more
public value.
• BCN will transform 209 new digital servi-
ces following the Digital Service Standards and • Implement continuous improvement by
the Technology Code of Conduct (all the new implementing practices in the organisation that
services are listed in section 0.8). require system-based processes to be improved.
7.2. Technological sovereignty and migration to free software
Technological sovereignty will be achieved The lines of actions here are:

through migration to free software, the de-
ployment of open standards, changes in pu- • Ensuring that 70% of investments in new
blic procurement to promote open source software developments go towards open sour-
software and the identification of migration ce software.
opportunities to open architecture in the
short term. • Making 10 solutions developed by Barce-
lona City Council available to other municipali-
ties and administrations.

• Incorporating open corporate worksta- •Reduction in development costs (low).
tions which function using open systems and
programmes into the municipal systems. •Reduction maintenance costs (effective).
During the first half of 2017, the following ac- •Reduction of technology evolution costs
tions were carried out: (notable when we introduce new functionalities
developed by the community).
• Identify opportunities for development
and / or migration to architectures and open •Reduction in costs of migration to new
systems in the short term. solutions (important).
• Preparation of a migration and develop- Flagships projects in this area, with a total bud-
ment plan for free and open source code. get of 21.5 million euros and a timetable ranging
from the first quarter of 2017 until the end of
• Definition of guidelines for publishing and the second quarter of 2019, are included in the
sharing software and content of the City Coun- Open Source Migration Plan (Annex 12.5).
cil under free software and content licenses.
• Migration of corporate e-mail to open tech-
• Introduce into public procurement pro- nologies
cesses the promotion of the creation, use and
reuse of free and open source software. • Adaptation of the Windows workstation (Win-
dows 10) with a set of free software applications.
• Introduce guidelines at corporate level
for the use of open standards for technologies, • Adoption of development tools for applica-
data and other information in the city. tions based on open technologies.
Based on the lines of action identified, we will • Open workstation and desktop.
achieve the following:
• Mobile ID / e-ID.
•An increase in technological sovereignty.
• New services developed in open source
•Improvement of our image and positio-
ning among society.
7.3. Responsible and ethical data strategy
Data are of considerable importance in the The lines of actions here are:
municipal and city environment and there is
a clear need to define and put into operation • Designing and carrying out initiatives to
a new cross-cutting municipal government adapt to the new GDPR for processing perso-
model for reinforcing sovereignty. Given its nal data in Barcelona City Council.
importance, the City Council will devote a
government measure to express the data • Defining and implementing new pro-
management policy and its implementation cesses which allow privacy and security to be
throughout all the units of the City Coun- incorporated by default, in the design of new
cil. Here, we indicate the action lines and computer applications.
projects that will fall under the scope of this
forthcoming measure, an essential element • Establishing the level of proactive con-
of the Digital Transformation Plan. trol required by the new regulation.

• Defining the role of the municipal office • Improve effectiveness and efficiency.
of data analytics and the Chief Data Officer.
• Democratise access to data.
• Creating a Chief Data Analytics Office,
bringing new capabilities for privacy related • Create new and improved public services.
data improvement and analysis.
• Achieve greater democratic quality, res-
• Creating a Data Challenges program- pecting citizens’ rights, data protection and
me to involve SMEs and companies in devising access to informatoin.
data-driven applications for solving the city’s
challenges. • Generate Transparency and accountability.
We worked on the following initiatives during • Regain citizens’ trust.

the first quarter of 2017:
The total budget for the flagship projects in this
• Establishing new rules for data gover- area is 2.3 million euros and their timetable runs
nance. from the first quarter of 2017 up to the middle of
the first quarter of 2019.
• Defining the open architecture of data.
• Creating platforms for big data analysis • CityOS Services (pollution, mobility, tourism)
for public policies and services.
• Ecology dashboard.
• Creating a guide for ethical and respon-
sible uses of data, guaranteeing privacy and • Barcelona Housing Observatory (OHB).
sovereignty.
• DCODE: An EU wide project to develop a block-
Based on the lines of action that have been chain based architecture for data sovereignty.
identified, we will be able to:
7.4. New procurement model
Through achieving the main objective of the ders towards considering innovation as a fun-
new procurement model, outlined in section damental element which is inseparable from
06.5, we can guarantee technological and data and boosts sustainable procurement.
sovereignty, promote technological innovation
and lever social and economic change. • Drafting standard procurement do-
cuments: for standardisation and agility in
The lines of action here are: procurement.
• New Procurement Framework: Con- • Creation of the Digital Marketplace:

ceptualising a new orientation in the procure- A space for continuous dialogue and interac-
ment process. tion between providers, citizens and the City
Council.
• ICT Procurement Guide: A guide
which gives an overview of the municipal • Communication and dissemination: Dis-
strategy and facilitates the application of va- semination actions for the transformation pro-
rious measures. cess and municipal strategy over procurement.
The following actions were carried out during
• Implementing the Innovative Procure- the first quarter of 2017:
ment Guide: A guide which orientates its rea-

• Creating the guide for the procurement • Surveys to build a digital market platform
of technology and the guide for innovative pro- (Marketplace).
curement.
The total budget for the flagship project in this
• The development of these standard pro- area is 22 million euros. The timetable runs from
curement documentation. the beginning of the second quarter of 2017 to
the end of the first quarter of 2018.
• Work sessions with the ICT sector to for-
tify the measures linked to the procurement of • Digital Marketplace.
technology
7.5. Culture and organisation of the change
For the transformation of the existing teams the- partments, in accordance with differentiation
re is a plan to train internal staff, with workshops criteria for sectoral areas by technical specializa-
aimed at the organization, training and culture, tion, which will reinforce management, delegate
agile management and learning new tools. responsibilities for middle management and the
coordination of the different working groups.
In parallel, in the first half of 2017, a process
to cover 64 new positions for computer te- To finish, the emblematic projects that have
chnicians (superior and middle level) has also been pointed out in each one of the lines of
begun, through 2 job boards. This process action and that are detailed in the section 08,
should last until the end of 2017 and the in- are part of the Mandate Plan that consists of
corporation of people will take place during 3 plans: Sectoral, Legal and Technological, as
the first half of 2018. is set out in the following diagram (Figure 4).
We are also planning an organic restructuring We also show how progression has been made,
that provides for the creation of 16 new de- and consumption of the 2017 budget.
The Mandate Plan is made up of:
%
Initiatives Initiatives Execution
Initiatives
Sectorial pending
startup
in progress finalized initiatives
Plan
Initiatives Sectorial Plan 53 105 10 64%
Initiatives The Plan of Law (LPACP) 3 5 0 62,4%

The Plan of Technological
Law (LPACAP) Initiatives Technological Plan 31 70 6 65,4%
Plan
Initiatives
The degree of execution of the 2017 budget for each plan

up to June 2017 is as follows:
The Plan of Technological
Sectorial
Law (LPACAP) Plan
Plan
Initiatives
The Mandate Plan takes into account the
needs of the Council and the programme
71,3% 42,6% 75,9% for open digitisation and development of
agile services.

8 Flagship projects
within the course
of action
The changes to be introduced as a result of and a simplification in the procedures.
the development of this open digitisation and
development of agile services programme, are 3. Mobile Municipal Services. Reducing
being carried out gradually through a series the number of web apps. This is about simplif-
of projects outlined in the previous section, ying how the portal functions to improve usa-
which is why we call them flagship projects. bility. Obsolete applications will be removed,
applications will be consolidated, new open
These will be pioneer projects for the appli- source tools will be introduced and open da-
cation of the new practices, whether they ta-use increased. A set of new web apps using
are agile development technologies or using adaptive design will be developed and made
open source software solutions, applying open available to citizens.
standards or implementing the recommen-
dations derived from the new data strategy. 4. Decidim Barcelona. Development of
Stage 3 of the citizen participation platform
This section presents all the flagship projects which includes multi-consultation functions.
within this digitisation programme, with a brief This will improve the participatory services that
description of each: the City Council has made available to citizens.
5. Information system for social rights.

1. Municipal Management Dashboard. Part of the new information system from the
In addition to the development of a das- Manager’s Office for Social Rights will be de-
hboard for the government team, a free veloped using new methodologies. This will
application for citizens will also be develo- speed up the development of new digital ser-
ped that shows a summary of strategic indi- vices and the efficiency of related public ser-
cators and provides data on the city coun- vices.
cil services with management indicators for
their projects, progress made on accompli- 6. ASIA. A new calendar of events and faci-
shing government commitments, citizens’ lities in the city. This is currently one of the digital
ratings, etc. This service is an important services most used by citizens. Its performance
step towards having more transparency in and usability will be improved.
municipal management and public scrutiny.
7. Barcelona Sports Institute’s Informa-
2. Citizen Help and Information Portal. tion System. Some of the applications that
The procedures portal for citizens and com- make up the new information system of the
panies in Barcelona will be renewed to simplify Barcelona Sports Institute will be developed
access and use and reduce the documentation with the new agile methodologies. Citizens
required by the rules of administrative proce- should notice an improvement in the services
dure. Citizens will notice a clear improvement provided by this institute.
in the usability of the portal’s digital services

8. E-Government. A series of digital that any public administration can use them, so
applications and services to adapt administra- that any developer or ICT company can develop
tive procedures to the new legal framework. and add new features. Note that the City Coun-
Some of these applications will be constructed cil is already using open source applications such
with the new agile development methodology. as the Open Data portal, the Internet of Things
The most tangible benefit of this will be the sim- platform, Sentilo, the image bank (BIMA) and the
plification of municipal procedures for citizens, Decidim.Barcelona participatory platform.
who will appreciate a reduction in bureaucracy
and an improvement in response times. 15. City OS Services. This is an advanced
data-analytics platform with a consolidated
9. Corporate-email migration. The Mi- view of city information, based on free and
crosoft Exchange email servers will be repla- open source products. It will be offered to the
ced with an open source alternative. Email community to detect problems, shorten res-
clients will also be migrated by Microsoft Out- ponse times and improve public services. The
look will be kept in place (for 20% of users). various management offices and service direc-
The service’s improvement will have an impact torates will be able to use this data platform for
on the entire municipal organisation. carrying out more accurate analyses of infor-
mation and thereby issue better public policies.
10. New workstation with free software.
The project will replace the maximum number 16. Ecology dashboard. A dashboard
of proprietary applications currently used in will be developed which integrates the areas
the different work stations of the City Council of environment, urban planning, infrastructu-
for applications based on free and open source res, mobility and urban services to improve
software, but without replacing the platform or decision-making processes.
Microsoft Windows operating system.
17. The Barcelona Housing Observatory
11. Adopting tools for the development (OHB). A repository of big data specialised in
of open technology based applications. The housing will be created that will allow data to
intention is to implement a framework that be analysed and for public policies to be de-
allows the development of open source appli- veloped to combat the current housing issues.
cations and management tools for develop-
ment in open source technologies. 18. DCODE. This is a European pilot pro-
ject being developed in Barcelona and Am-
12. Open desktop. Workstations that cu- sterdam to manage data sovereignty in a sha-
rrently have proprietary applications and opera- red economy. The technical solutions being
ting systems will gradually be migrated towards developed in this project will work to improve
workstations with 100% open source products. services for citizens, making them more secu-
re while further safeguarding data ownership
13. Mobile-ID Identifier/ e-ID. The mo- and control.
bile identifier currently has 18,000 users and is
used more than 2,000 times each week. The 19. Digital Marketplace. The creation of
service will be updated and new authentica- a digital marketplace to facilitate the access
tion mechanisms incorporated. The main be- small businesses have to public procurement
neficiaries of this service are citizens, who will processes.
have a tool to facilitate the use of the various
digital services offered by the City Council. 20. IRIS. Development of the new ver-
sion of the multi-channel service for Inci-
14. Services developed in open source. dents, Claims and Suggestions that manages
Various applications used by the City Council the requests for services, notices, incidents
will be developed internally and/or externally in and claims of citizens since 2003. This new
free and open source code. These applications version will be developed entirely in open
or services will be offered to the community so source software and will be transferred to
the community.

The schedule for execution of flagship pro- thodologies and the use of software and open
jects related to the application of agile me- standards is as follows.
Pressupost 2017 2018 2019

Project
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2
Municipal Management
€ 235K
Dashboard
Citizen Information and Help
€ 2,196K
Portal
Municipal Mobile Services € 100K
Decidim.Barcelona € 600K
Social rights
€ 1,521K
information system
ASIA € 360K
Barcelona Institute of
€ 270K
Sports’ information system
E-Government € 1,755K
Corporate email migration
€ 500K
to “open”
New Windows workstation
€ 400K
(10). Free stacking software
Adopting tools for the develo-
pment of applications based € 100K
on open technologies
Open desktop € 484.5K
Mobile-ID Identifier/ e-ID € 22K

Services developed in
€ 20M
open source
CityOS Services € 1,132K
Ecology dashboard € 375K
Barcelona Housing Observatory € 421.7K
DCODE € 400K
Marketplace conceptualisation € 22K
FIGURE 5

9 Success metrics
and results
The purpose behind success metrics is to launch times for new services, quantity of de-
provide tools for understanding whether the fects detected in the developments, number
actions taken by the City Council have helped of iterations, etc.
it to reach its goals and what changes need
to be made to ensure these goals are achie- The knowledge level of the transformation
ved. A well-designed measurement responds process that is acquired from the vario¬us
to specific performance-related questions municipal areas will be measured. At the same
and allows decisions to be made to improve time, the degree of satisfaction for each area
data-based services. will be assessed with the new digital services
developed, through a periodic survey. The
The digitisation programme's progress will be adaptation of the services to the nee-ds of
monitored through icon¬ic projects. Their the “business”, the degree of their updating,
degree of per¬formance (performance %) their usability, accessibility, degree of inno-
and the budget implemented will be me- vation and response time will be measured
asured. The progress of the programme's in that same survey.
various action lines and the initiatives they
entail will be measured by means of progress Another important metric that will be used
metrics and indicators specific to each ini- for monitoring the programme's success will
tiative: proportion of contracts performed be the availability of digital public services.
under fast methodologies, budget allocated The following diagram (Figure 6), shows the
to fast pro¬jects, budget aimed at freeware results regarding the availability and provision
and open-code project, development and of services for the first half of 2017.
Availability of services
99.22%
100% 98.72% 98.64%
99%
98%
97% 97.28% 97.28%
96%
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE
FIGURE 6: Service availability indicators

Finally, human resources is one of the main is being carried out in this area, as well as the
indicators that will be used for measuring the planning, is depicted in the following image
progress of this programme. The process that (Figure 7).
Under the Municipal Institute of Technology's Human Resources Plan for this curren
term of office, the process for filling the following IT vacancies was started during the
first six months of 2017:
HR PLAN OTHER TOTAL
VACANCIES VACANCIES VACANCIES
Senior IT Consultant 28 4 32
Intermediate Level IT Consultant 32 0 32
TOTAL VACANCIES 60 4 64
The Human Resources Department has begun a selection process for setting up two em-
ployment offices under the above-mentioned categories. The planning for the various
initiatives to be followed is:
Carrying out personal and/or skills

Collecting Senior Consultant Carrying out Psycho-Tech- interviews and publication of the re-
applications presented/ad- nical Tests (Aptitude Test sults, Publication of the final result:
mitted: 214/216, Intermediate and Personality and/or List by score order of the approved
Consultant: 199/161 Skills Test) candidates
May June July September October November
These people are

Announcement’s Publication of: Publication of the re- expected to be in-
publication in the • constitution of the Selection sults of the 1st test, call corporated during
Official Journal of Committees at the DoC, for applications for va-
the Generalitat of • provisional lists of admitted and cancies and carrying out
the 1st six months
Catalonia (DOGC) excluded candidates (Intranet and of the Catalan test and of 2018
Municipal Website), publication of results.
• Deadline for challenges,
• Final list of those admitted/
excluded
FIGURE 7: Human Resources Plan indicators

10 Implementation
schedule
2017 2018 2019

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2
Speedy, user-centred digital services
Agile Methodologies
Technological sovereignty and
Open technologies
Data-responsible strategy
Transformation of the
Public Procurement of ICTs
Competence, culture and management
of the organisational change

11 Budget
The Digital Transformation Plan of the Bar-

celona City Council currently has a budget
of €72,000,000.
€ 31,750,000 of this plan is allocated to flags-

hip projects that will be developed within the
Program for Open Digitization: Free Software
and Agile Development of Services. These
projects will be developed with agile me-
thodologies, will incorporate free and open
source software or incorporate new practices
in the use of data.
In addition, during the course of the mandate,

an additional amount of € 1,500,000 will be
allocated to the Program for Open Digitization:
Free Software and Agile Development of Ser-
vices for the governance of the transformation
process, including the introduction of agile
methodologies and the adoption of solutions
based on free and open source software.

12 Annexes
12.1 DIGITAL SERVICES STANDARD
12.2 CODE OF TECHNOLOGICAL PRACTICES
12.3 FAST METHODOLOGIES AT

BARCELONA CITY COUNCIL
12.4 TECHNOLOGICAL SOVEREIGNTY GUIDE
12.5 DETAILS OF THE OPEN-CODE MIGRATION PLAN
12.6 PUBLIC PROCUREMENT OF TECHNOLOGY GUIDE
12.7 INNOVATIVE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT GUIDE

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Barcelona

Barcelona Ciutat Digital

The Open Digitisation Programme from Barcelona City

This Guide was prepared by a team led by Francesca Bria,

Bain, Joan Batlle, Ana Bastide Vila, Xabier Barandiaran Fernán-

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

2. Broadening and expanding agile me- 9. Developing new technology-acquisition

5. Preferential use of free and open sof-

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

4.1. Barcelona City Council

GOVERNMENT Creating a more open and efficient government

ENTERPRISE Developing the digital and socio-economic

CITIZENS Empowering the people

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

4.3. New Trends in the development of agile digital services,

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

4.4. Agile methodologies and free software in other public

Closer to home, the Regional Government of

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

5.3. The current Situation

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

The guides, which accompany this government

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

• Strengthening technological sovereign- This will be achieved through a series of ac-

CAPACITY AND CULTURE

DIGITAL SERVICES STANDARD

DELIVERY OF DIGITAL SERVICES

NEW PROCUREMENT MODEL

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

6.2. Agile Methodologies

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

• Mobile Municipal Services. • E-Government.

• Decidim.Barcelona. The reference document for this topic is the

6.3. Technological sovereignty and Open Technologies

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

6.4. Responsible Data Strategy

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

6.5. Transformation of Public Procurement of ICTs

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

Technology Code of Practice Technology Buying Handbook

Data Strategy New Procurement Framework &

Digital Service Delivery Standard Capability Plan & Hiring

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

7.1. Agile and user-centred digital services

7.2. Technological sovereignty and migration to free software

Technological sovereignty will be achieved The lines of actions here are:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

7.3. Responsible and ethical data strategy

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

We worked on the following initiatives during • Regain citizens’ trust.

7.4. New procurement model

• New Procurement Framework: Con- • Creation of the Digital Marketplace:

Barcelona City Council Digital Plan: A government measure or open digitisation:

7.5. Culture and organisation of the change