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One-stop-government in Europe: An Overview

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 ONE-STOP-GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE: AN OVERVIEW

Herbert Kubicek, Martin Hagen

University of Bremen

1. The need for One-Stop-Government

One-Stop-Government addresses a crucial problem of modern public

administrations. The modern state has taken up many responsibilities,
starting from insuring public safety and guaranteeing essential infra-
structures, continuing to provide for health and welfare and culminating
in pursuing common interests, such as promoting a strong economy or
protecting the environment. In the historical process of assuming more
and more responsibilities, the administration and operation of these
programs has been assigned to certain, functionally delineated branches
or agencies of public administration. In addition, typical divisions of
legal and/or operational authority between national, regional and local
levels of governments exist. Also, semi-private or private organizations
have been charged with carrying out public services. The result is a
highly fragmented public sector which does not reflect a customer’s
perspective, who expects or prefers to have all related concerns con-
cerning a certain event or situation to be taken care of by one or a few,
but not many service providers. What is needed is a new organizational
model to deliver services from the point of view of the “customer”, as
citizens and business can be called in their particular role in the process
of service delivery (the term is heavily contested in public administra-
tion reform, see for example Seidle (1995)).
In today’s economy, citizens are used to comprehensive services.
Supermarkets offer many different kinds of foods, travel agencies sell
package tours, and banks take care of everything from checking ac-
counts to investment strategies. Turning to government, a citizen could
expect to find all his needs associated with retirement being provided
by a single office. So could a business wanting to build a new storage
facility on its premises. Due to functional fragmentation, however, in
most countries both would have to deal with many different agencies.
To complicate matters, different levels of government and functional
divisions are so many that in most situations citizens and businesses do
not even know who is responsible for their concern, causing many
1
One-Stop-Government in Europe

frustrating contacts with public administration. One-Stop-Government

is a solution for these problems, as it is strongly supported by public
administration experts underscoring the crucial role of „integration“ for
achieving citizen- or customer-oriented government (Fountain, 1994;
Seidle, 1995; Federal Benchmarking Consortium, 1997; Intergovern-
mental Advisory Board, 1998; Bent, Kernaghan et al., 1999; Office of
Intergovernmental Solutions, 1999).
Integration, however, is not the only aspect of customer-
orientation. Citizens want service with as little effort as possible on
their side. Difficult-to-understand rules and procedures are posing ob-
stacles for them. They also want quick service. They don’t like waiting
in lines or shopping around and are pleased with instant resolving of the
matter. In addition, services should be easily accessible, which means
convenient opening hours and service delivery points within a short
distance from where they live and work. The exact order of preferences
is difficult to assess, however. It varies between types of services. One
survey among citizens of Germany’s city of Hagen found the following
preferences:

Fig. 1: What citizens want from their city administration; survey of citizens of
Hagen, Germany, 1992, in percentage. Source: (Kißler, Bogumil et al., 1994,
114)
2
 Overview

As can be seen, “one building for all services” is not the highest
preference. This has to be kept in mind: One-Stop-Government cannot
be believed to be a cure-all. The result of the Hagen citizens’ survey
can be explained in so far as respondents were asked when visiting
agencies, causing factors directly associated with their visit and/or re-
cent experience to score highest. In absolut numbers, “one building”
was still ranked as important.
Another aspect of citizen preferences to be considered is the high
preference for government services to be delivered online. When asked
which service they would like to be offered online, European citizens
rank administration services first.

Top 12 %
Tele-administration 47,8
Tele-tourism 42,3
Tele-medicine 41,9
Job hunt 41,5
Distance learning 33,9
E-commerce 33,8
Consumer rights 33,4
Home banking 33,3
Newspapers online 29,1
Virtual Musea 21,6
Life insurance, financial plan 14
E-democracy 10,9
Tab. 1: Top-ranked online-services by European citizens. Source: Euro-
barometer, EC-ISAC Measuring Information Society 1998:
www.ispo.cec.be/polls.

This could be an indicator that citizens would like to interact with

administration in a quality usually associated with online services: fast,
easy and comprehensive. As has been explained above, these attributes
also apply to One-Stop-Government as well.
Not only citizens and business, but public administration itself can
profit from One-Stop-Government. Citizen-orientation is an integral
component of most public administration reforms, see, for example Os-
borne and Gaebler (1993, 166-194). In the quest for introducing new
public management methods and practices, however, this component

3
One-Stop-Government in Europe

has often been overlooked. It re-appears on the agenda when ways are
sought to further improve public administration beyond existing proj-
ects. One-Stop-Government can serve a variety of goals:
• Paying attention to citizen and business needs improves the image
of public administration.
• More efficient and effective interactions between the public and
administrations save costs on all sides.
• Approving construction of a business or re-integrating an unem-
ployed person into the workforce is not only in the personal interest
of the applicant to a public service, but helps the state in strength-
ening the economy or saving payment of benefits.
While the ramifications are obvious, it is very difficult to integrate
services in practice. This would require extensive re-structuring of en-
tire organizations, and possibly delineating responsibilities between dif-
ferent levels of government, which would mean a long, cumbersome
process. Because of the political problems associated with such an ef-
fort, reform-oriented managers might shy away from taking it on. The
potential of information technology can provide a solution to this
problem. Providing electronic services may also help in re-structuring
public service (see also Taylor, 1996; Frissen, 1997; Lenk, 1997). It
would still require organizational changes within each agency in order
to be used effectively and efficiently, but it would allow integration on
a front-office level.

2. Filling a Knowledge Gap

While interest in One-Stop-Government is growing, little knowledge

exists regarding crucial success factors and barriers. Filling this gap is
in particular difficult, because One-Stop-Government projects are still
comparatively few in number. While there have been some surveys on
the North American continent (Seidle, 1995, 117-138; Lips and Frissen,
1997; Intergovernmental Advisory Board, 1998; Bent, Kernaghan et al.,
1999; Office of Intergovernmental Solutions, 1999), not many have
been conducted in Europe. Lips and Frissen (1997) have covered the
Dutch project OL2000 (see also the Dutch national report in this book)
and projects in Britain. Recently, the U.S. Office of Intergovernmental
Solutions (1999) has referenced some projects in a short-list.

4
 Overview

To fill the knowledge gap, the working group 3 „ICT and public
administration“ of the joint European research action „Governments
and Democracy in the Information Age“, which is part of the COST
program, decided to commission 11 national reports to survey best
practices of One-Stop-Government in each country.1 The key-research
questions were defined as follows:
• What constitutes the national and state’s vision of ”integrated
service delivery” and what prospects does it hold for 21st century
public administration?
• What constitutes the current practice of ”integrated service deliv-
ery” (for instance: what kind of technology is used, at what level of
government and/or in what policy sectors have initiatives been
started, are there specific target groups of citizens, etc.) and what
developments in public administration are to be expected in the
near future?
• What are barriers to the implementation of ”One-Stop-
Government”?
• What lessons can be learned from successful and failed projects and
how can they be applied in different countries and specific policy
sectors?2
Each author of a national report was asked to survey national pol-
icy documents in regard to One-Stop-Government and select approxi-
mately ten best-practice cases based on the following criteria:
• the project must have moved beyond the mere concept phase, e.g. it
should be either implemented, or in a pilot phase, or decisions must
have been made to implement it;
• the project must use IT and include organisational integration or
similar administrative reforms;
• the project must include transactions, and

1
For more information on the COST program, see URL:
www.netmaniacs.com/cost; the COST A14 action “Government and
Democracy in the Information Age”, see URL: www.cbs.dk/
departments/cos/gadia.htm, the working group 3 “ICT and Public Ad-
ministration”, see URL: www.fgtk.informatik.uni-bremen.de/cost.
2
These questions were also discussed at an international workshop on
One-Stop-Government in Bremen from Sept. 30th - Oct. 2nd, 1999. Pro-
ceedings will be published separately, see also http://www.fgtk.
informatik.uni-bremen.de/cost.
5
One-Stop-Government in Europe

• the project must involve at least two distinct units of government,

e.g. agencies or departments serving different public functions.
These projects were to be described according to
• Project history,
• Problem area addressed,
• Relationship to One-Stop-Government concept, and
• Achieved status.
Out of this set, approximately three were to be selected for more
detailed analysis. Discussion was to focus on crucial areas determining
success or failure:
• Organizational cooperation,
• Integration in existing processes,
• Technological infrastructure,
• Legal framework,
• Funding,
• Reciprocal benefits,
• Coupling with other initiatives.
The following countries were included in the survey, reflecting
membership in the COST working group and several invited studies:
• Austria,
• Belgium,
• Denmark,
• England and Wales,
• Finland,
• France,
• Germany,
• Ireland,
• Italy,
• Netherlands, and
• Spain.
The result is a comprehensive qualitative analysis of the current
status of One-Stop-Government in Europe. 98 different individual cases
were analyzed, between one (Finland) and 16 (Netherlands) per coun-
try. The Finnish project, however, covers close to 150 individual one-
stop shops. The sixteen Dutch projects are all part of a common initia-

6
 Overview

tive (OL2000). The status reflected in all case studies is that of Summer
1999.3
The research design provided for a common set of categories for
selecting the projects. However, it was difficult to find projects match-
ing all criteria in each of the countries. Because researchers followed
their own preferences regarding which additional projects to include, an
inter-national comparison is very difficult. While one researcher in-
cluded non-integrated single-filing projects as an important step to-
wards One-Stop-Government, others didn’t. Only in regard to national
strategies and general trends is such a comparison across nations possi-
ble.
What makes the sample valuable is that it aptly reflects the nascent
state of the art of One-Stop-Government. By bringing together best
practices from eleven nations, a clearer picture on the state of the art of
One-Stop-Government in Europe arises. While it is not a representative
sample, it does allow for the analysis of
• General strategies pursued in each country in relationship to One-
Stop-Government;
• Common types, delivery channels and policy areas of implemented
One-Stop-Government projects;
• Current status of One-Stop-Government and
• Typical barriers. 4

3. One-Stop-Government definition

Before this introduction summarizes some general results from the

eleven national reports, a more detailed understanding or what is ex-
actly meant by “One-Stop-Government” is in order. One-Stop-
Government is a new „Leitbild“ in public administration reform and re-
search. It refers to the integration of public services from a citizen’s –
or customer of public services‘ - point of view: „Under the one-stop
paradigm, all of a customer’s business can be completed in a single

3
We would like to thank all participants in this project for their hard work
and observing the many, closely scheduled deadlines. It was a pleasure to
work with all of you.
4
While this analysis is based exclusively on the work of all chapter
authors, the inferred results are those as assessed by us and we take full
responsibility for them.
7
One-Stop-Government in Europe

contact, be it face to face or via phone, fax, Internet or other means.

One-stop customers do not have to hunt around, call back, or repeatedly
explain their situation. One-stop customer service is convenient, acces-
sible, and personalized“ (Federal Benchmarking Consortium, 1997, 3).
While this goal can be traced farther back in public administration re-
form, the potentials of new information and communication technology
have recently given new attention to it.
Being in this sense a fairly new topic, there is still some confusion
as to what the concept and it synonyms „single-window“ (Bent, Kerna-
ghan et al., 1999) or „integrated service delivery“ (Office of Intergov-
ernmental Solutions, 1999) refer to. Bent, Karnaghan et al. (1999, 3)
have suggested to distinguish One-Stop-Government projects according
to purposes and structures. The first purpose can be served by „gate-
ways“ which provide access to „government information and referral
services“. „One-Stop shops“ provide access to „many or all of the
services (related and unrelated) provided by government in one con-
venient location (physical or electronic)“. And „seamless service“ is
geared to specific client groups and integrates „the provision of related
government services, within or between governments, to meet a service
need that spans multiple jurisdictions“ (ibd.). Caron and Bent (1999)
distinguish only between „access“ and „services“ as the purposes of
one-stop projects. However, it seems reasonable to differentiate be-
tween three types. We will distinguish between „First-Stop“, „Conven-
ience Store“ and „True One-Stop“ types of One-Stop-Government,
which follow each of the three purposes distinguished by Bent, Kerna-
ghan et al. (1999), respectively.
• First-Stop: This is typically an information counter which guides
the citizen to the relevant services based on his or her needs. The
information counter can be realized both in a physical location or
“virtually”, e.g. online through a web-site or an electronic kiosk. In
a strict sense, this is not „one“-stop-government, because at least a
second „stop“ is necessary.
• Convenience Store: Here, many different transactional services are
located in a single office or on one web-site. The services satisfy
the needs of many different concerns of citizens. Convenience store
government normally means locally decentralized government and
integrates services within the jurisdiction. Also typical for conven-
ience store government is that more complex services cannot be

8
 Overview

delivered here, as they require more service, knowledge, or time to

finish.
• True one-stop: Like a truck-stop on an interstate which offers gas,
repair services, food, and lodging, a true One-Stop-Government
service integrates many, most or all services which are necessary to
satisfy concerns of specific client groups or in specific events, such
as family, job or location changes. These services can be integrated
within one or – more advanced – multiple jurisdictions. Another
meaning of one-stop service includes the dedication of a single
contact person to handle all of a customer’s concerns.
A second dimension along which to distinguish One-Stop-
Government is the structure of service delivery. Bent, Kernaghan et al.
(1999, 4f.) suggest the following six options:
• Owner-delivered;
• Owner-delivered in a co-located environment;
• Shared delivery through integration;
• Delegated delivery through a corporate service utility;
• Delegated delivery through an Inter-governmental service utility;
• Delegated delivery through another service provider (“Multiplex-
ing”).
As the authors acknowledge, not all One-Stop-Government proj-
ects can be ranked into one exclusive category. Especially, the distinc-
tion between the second and third structure is difficult: when can the
delivery of services of two agencies be called integrated, and when is it
only co-located; especially when the aspect of “delegation” is covered
by yet another structure? Within the three different structures of dele-
gated delivery, the authors distinguish between two kinds of dedicated
service providers: those which are part of the government (“corporate”
service utility) and those which are not, as private service providers
such as the post. They do not find an example for an inter-governmental
service utility. Maybe, these are not too different from “corporate serv-
ice utitilities”. The author’s main point, however, is very valid: prob-
lems increase to the extent with which ownership of service delivery is
moved out of the agency, to either public or private service providers
(Caron and Bent, 1999, 9f.). More clarification on how to distinguish
between the different structures in regard to integrated service-delivery
is needed. Caron and Bent (1999) drop “structure” as a category in their
classification of single-window cases, and distinguish under the head-
ing of “organisation of services” between two kinds of clustering: the-
9
One-Stop-Government in Europe

matic and demographic clustering, and also find examples of no-

clustering. In this typology, the second dimension, purposes, is then
distinguished only in “access”, e.g. referral and information services,
and “service”, e.g. actual transactions.
In a report focussing on the ICT support of One-Stop-Government
as ours, another dimension lends itself for distinction of One-Stop-
Government: the technical delivery channel. This dimension is under-
lying the different structures of One-Stop-Government Bent, Karna-
ghan et al. (1999) have identified. Delivery channels comprise physical
locations, web-sites, kiosks and call-centers.
• Physical location: One way to deliver One-Stop-Government are
traditional office buildings or other – physical – institutions, such
as dedicated „government stores“. Service is face to face and often
over the counter. Information technology support is needed for the
front-line employees, typically to give them access to customer data
and information on services of the back-office institutions inte-
grated at the physical location.
• Web-Site/Internet: The Internet has proven to be a powerful new
medium to deliver all kinds of services, including financial transac-
tions. Governments can use web-sites to communicate and conduct
business with their customers. Web-Sites can be accessed at home,
the workplace or public access terminals (PC- or kiosk-based).
• Kiosk: Self-service kiosks can also be used to deliver services di-
rectly to customers. Interaction with the service provider is fully
automated, including payment functions. A one-stop kiosk inte-
grates services from different service providers. Kiosks can be
spread out to a greater variety of locations than office buildings
usually are.
• Call-center: The term „call-center“ is in itself ambigous and can re-
fer to anything from a central phone number of an agency to an out-
sourced operating unit handling all or most client contacts for one
or more agencies. In the context of this project call-center refers to
telephone applications delivering information, referral or transac-
tional public services.
These characterisations focus on the important role IT plays in
One-Stop-Government projects. It seems hardly possible to integrate
services without the help of IT. IT is either used directly to deliver
services in a kiosk, web-site and call-center, and indirectly in assisting
in-person employees at physical locations. Also, intergovernmental
10
 Overview

networks and workflow applications are important components of One-

Stop-Government projects.
However, One-Stop-Government must not be confused with elec-
tronic government. If electronic government refers to all forms of IT-
supported information, communication and transactions between cus-
tomers and administrations, elements of it such as electronic filing can
be part of One-Stop-Government. For a One-Stop-Government project,
however, they must be used in an application which integrates different
public services, as specified by the three types of One-Stop-
Government.

4. Results

The remainder of this introduction will focus on general results which

can be inferred from comparing the eleven individual reports. For
deeper analysis, the reader is referred to the individual reports.

4.1 National Strategies

The nations surveyed pursue very different strategies at the national

policy level. They can be defined as explicit, implicit, and no strategy.
An explicit strategy is pursued by three countries. In the Nether-
lands, the federal government has been actively supporting integrated
service counters since 1992, when it started to fund four pilots of “gov-
ernment service centers”. In 1996, the “Overheidsloket 2000” (public
counter 2000) was launched.5 This initiative’s goal is to structure the
delivery of public services according to “demand patterns”, and has
funded projects in the areas of citizen registration, welfare, and con-
struction. In Finland, local government service bureaus have been an
integral part of public administration reform since 1993. These service
bureaus are ultimately destined to become fully integrated points of
service delivery for most public services in Finland. In Italy, local gov-
ernments were given full control of business licensing by law, but must
present all relevant services through a single window. Thus, in this area
One-Stop-Government has become mandatory.

5
For sources and more detailed information about national strategies, refer
to the first sections of the national reports in this book.
11
One-Stop-Government in Europe

An implicit strategy is followed by four countries. Austria, Den-

mark, Ireland and the UK are examples of governments who have vari-
ous public administration reform and information technology initia-
tives. These champion One-Stop-Government concepts. Austria, for
example, also provides funding for pilot projects exploring options of
integrated service delivery. Thus, integrated service delivery is a clearly
stated goal in these countries, but they lack the concerted efforts to in-
troduce it on a wide scale, as in those countries with an explicit strat-
egy.
No strategy in regard to One-Stop-Government is pursued by the
remainder of the countries in this report, Belgium, Germany, France,
and Spain. While the idea does surface in policy papers, these countries
do not embrace the idea of One-Stop-Government as a concrete policy
goal for the near future. However, one needs to keep in mind that this
can change quickly. Germany’s federal government has included a ref-
erence to One-Stop-Government in its IT strategy, which was published
after the main survey had been conducted in the summer of 1999. The
newly elected Belgium government announced similar goals earlier in
1999. Also, lack of a national One-Stop-Government initiative does not
tell anything about the situation at the local level. Here, countries with
no national strategy are as active as some of their counterparts, as ex-
amples from Germany and Spain show in particular. And thirdly, with
the exception of France, the countries with no One-Stop-Government
strategy are federal states or have strong autonomous regions. As their
central governments are not directly in charge of service delivery in
many areas, this might also explain the lack of more explicit strategies,
but does not excuse it, as all levels of government are engaged in some
forms of service delivery directly.

4.2 Types of implemented One-Stop-Government

A little less than half of all One-Stop-Government projects covered in

the studies fall under the type of convenience stores. 14 are first-stops
and 29 true one-stops. In ten cases, combination between two types
were found (cf. table 2).

12
 Overview

First Stop Convenience True One- Combined Other

Store stop Projects
14 41 29 3 (CS/OS) 9
2 (FS/OS)
Table 2: # of cases according to types of One-Stop-Government

9 projects were not One-Stop-Government-projects, and ranged from

internal government networks (Government Secure Intranet in UK, En-
nis in Ireland) to shared databases (ACCORD in UK and WIS-KISS
and Hotjob-SIC in Belgium), electronic filing applications (ELSTER in
Germany, Iform and Ecommerce-tax form in UK) and workflow appli-
cations (PBFlow in Belgium). The latter projects can be regarded as
crucial steps toward One-Stop-Government, and were therefore in-
cluded in the survey.
The high proportion of convenience stores leads to the conclusion
that One-Stop-Government in Europe today primarily means the provi-
sion of many different government services through common delivery
channels. True one-stop, e.g. offering services from an “outside-in”
perspective according to life-events and life-situations is realized less
often. Probably because they did not fulfil the criterium of online trans-
actions, not more first-stop projects were analyzed. That they do appear
quite frequently in the survey shows their importance as a stepping
stone.

4.3 Delivery channels of implemented One-Stop-Government projects

All but 13 projects are delivered either through physical locations or

through the WWW/Internet or a combination including either one of
them. 18 projects used kiosks and 15 used call-centers. Between physi-
cal locations and the WWW, the split is approximately even, with
physical locations being a little more. This means that One-Stop-
Government is not slanted towards either of the two delivery channels.
Both physical locations and Web-Sites are wide-spread delivery chan-
nels of One-Stop-Government, while kiosks and call-centers are less
frequent.
Several typical combinations of types of One-Stop-Government
and delivery channels exist (see table 3). True One-Stop-Government is

13
One-Stop-Government in Europe

delivered in almost ¾ of cases in physical locations; only six projects

offered exclusive web-, kiosk- or phone-based services (including com-
bined one-stop/first-stop or one-stop/convenience-store types). First-
stop government, in turn, is offered more often by electronic means or
telephone than through physical locations. Call-centers are almost ex-
clusively used in first-stop government projects. Convenience store
type projects are again split roughly equally between physical location
and other delivery channels. Kiosks almost always offer convenience
store type government, while the Web is used more or less evenly by all
three types of One-Stop-Government.

First Conven- True Com- Total Other

Stop ience One- bined one-stop
Store stop Proj-
ects
Physical Location - 15 21 0 36 -
(PL)
Web-Site/ 4 10 4 2 20 3
Internet (WWW)
Kiosks (K) 2 6 1 - 9 2
Call-Center (CC) 4 - - 1 5 -
PL/WWW - 1 2 - 3 -
PL/CC 1 - 1 - 2 -
PL/K - 1 - - 1 -
WWW/K 1 2 - 1 4 3
WWW/CC - 2 - - 2 -
PL/WWW/CC - 1 - - 1 -
PL/WWW/K - 1 1 - 2 -
PL/WWW/K/CC 1 2 - - 3 -
Other (CD; data- 1 - - - 1 1
base)
Total 19 41 22 7 89 9
Table 3: Delivery channels of types of One-Stop-Government projects

4.4 Policy Areas of implemented One-Stop-Government

Few projects are geared to integrate „all“ government services (for this
and the following refer to table 4). Those who do are government call
centers like the Belgian „Green phone“ initiative. They don’t deliver
14
 Overview

actual services, but act as a first-stop information center. These serv-

ices, which aim to be comprehensive, must be distinguished from proj-
ects offering only miscellaneous services. As can be seen in table three,
the biggest group of projects offers services from this policy area. This
means that no specific policy area or bundling is addressed, but instead
single services are selected for delivery. Logically, these services are
not true One-Stop-Government, and fall mostly under the convenience
store type model. Miscellaneous services are offered via all different
kinds of delivery channels, including kiosk and call-center applications
(see table 4 below for relationship between policy areas and delivery
channels).

First Conven- True Com- Total other

Stop ience One- bined One-
Store stop Projects Stop

“All” gov’t. 4 - - 1 5 -
Misc. gov’t. 4 21 3 2 30 1
Citizen registration 2 15 2 1 20 -
and licenses
Car registration 1 4 1 - 6 -
Building permits; - 1 9 1 11 1
plant construction;
real estate
Business licenses/SME 2 2 7 - 11 -
affairs
Tax and wage report- 2 7 2 - 11 3
ing
Unemploy- 1 1 2 1 5 2
ment/Workforce Dev.
Social Security, Wel- 2 8 5 1 16 2
fare and Health
Student affairs - 1 - - 1 -
Internal gov’t - 1 - - 1 1
Table 4: Policy areas addressed by One-Stop-Government (NOTE: Projects
often address more than one topic; therefore, totals exceed number of projects)

The policy area with the biggest share of One-Stop-Government

projects are citizen registration and licenses, such as birth or marriage
certificates. They, too, are delivered in a convenience store type model.
15
One-Stop-Government in Europe

Less in number, but with a similar distribution over the different One-
Stop-Government types, is car registration. Obviously, these services
are not integrated into any bundled applications, oriented to life-
situation or events. The large number is to a great extent due to the
spread of (physical) citizen’s offices in countries like Austria, Germany
or Finland.
Building permits, plant construction permits and real estate mat-
ters are the most „integrated“ services offered in One-Stop-Government
projects. Two types exist: first-stop type projects provide guidance in
an usually complex matter of building/construction/real-estate question
and refer to the various agencies who need to be contacted. This type
can be found most often in the Dutch OL2000 project. The other type
are true one-stop projects, which integrate responsibilities from various
authorities in order to simplify contacts with the administration for ap-
plicants. Many of such projects, which are, like the Dutch projects, de-
livered mostly through physical locations, can be found in Austria.
Business licenses and related applications for SME are also prime
targets for true one-stop projects. While there are an equal amount of
first-stop and convenience store types, half of them are true one-stop.
However, these were only four in total. Many of these projects are from
Italy, where the single business counter has been mandated by law (see
above). Taken together with the building permits area, which has also a
strong orientation towards business, it can be inferred that business is
the prime target group for true One-Stop-Government projects, whereas
citizens are more often addressed by convenience store type models.
Tax and wage reporting, which is geared both to citizens and busi-
ness, is offered in convenience store types, normally reflecting applica-
tions by financial and social security departments to accept online-
filings (see table 5, where WWW-based delivery is used most often).
Examples can be found in most countries in the survey.
Job seekers seem to be another target group for which true one-
stop projects are in the making, however, only very few projects have
been realized. General social security, welfare and health offers are de-
livered through all types of delivery mechanisms, with most of them in
the convenience store type, but a comparatively strong representation in
the true one-stop type as well (4 projects).
That One-Stop-Government must not necessarily be oriented to
citizens and business, but other target groups as well, is reflected by
two single applications, the Economic University of Vienna addressing
16
 Overview

students, and the EDISON project in Belgium addressing school ad-

ministrators.

PL WW K CC Comb Other Total

W . One-
Stop
“All” gov’t. - 1 - 2 2 - 5
Misc. gov’t. 5 8 6 2 7 - 28
Citizen registra- 12 3 - 1 5 - 21
tion and licenses
Car registration 5 - 1 - - - 6
Building per- 8 2 - - 2 - 12
mits; plant con-
struction; real
estate
Business li- 4 5 - - 1 - 10
censes/SME af-
fairs
Tax and wage 2 5 1 1 3 - 12
reporting
Unemploy- 2 - - 1 1 - 4
ment/Workforc
e Dev.
Social Security, 8 4 1 - 2 1 16
Welfare and
Health
Student affairs - - - - 1 - 1
Internal gov’t - 1 - - - - 1
Table 5: Policy areas and delivery channels of One-Stop-Government projects
(NOTE: Projects often address more than one topic; therefore, totals exceed
number of projects; non-One-Stop-Government – “other” - projects not
counted)

Given the large share of One-Stop-Government projects delivered

through a physical location, it is no surprise that in most policy areas,
the majority of applications are delivered exactly through this channel.
What is of interest are the variations. Electronic technologies have a
large share in the category of miscellaneous services. Apparently, only
selected government services are delivered through these delivery
channels. This is an indicator of the experimental stage these technolo-
gies are in (see next section). Vice versa, citizen and car registration are
17
One-Stop-Government in Europe

almost exclusively delivered through physical locations only. This al-

ready reflects the crucial issue of missing means of authentication in
electronic networks (see below, section 4.6.), wherefore a physical
presence of the applicant in cases of registration and licenses is still
necessary. The same can be said for building permits, business licenses
and social security/health/welfare. But because the services delivered in
these areas are not only applications, but also, for example, zoning
maps or counselling assistance, other delivery channels are employed a
little more frequently in these policy areas (the same accounts for the
few electronic and phone-based applications in the registra-
tion/licensing area).
The big departure are tax and wage reporting related applications,
where the national surveys report quite a few web-based applications.
Apparently, these services lend themselves most readily for electronic
delivery. It can safely be assumed that these projects, which often are
not true One-Stop-Government (see table 4), were included in the sur-
veys because the demonstration of online-transactions was seen to be
relevant for the development of One-Stop-Government.

4.5 Status of One-Stop-Government

One-Stop-Government in Europe, on the whole, is in an infant state.

This is already underscored by the fact that most national reports in-
cluded cases which did not meet all of the strict criteria identifying re-
alized One-Stop-Government projects. Also, some “failures”, as the
SCOPE project or some of the Dutch OL2000 projects, were included.
(That not more were included is due to the fact that “actual implemen-
tation” was one of the criteria.) However, in all European countries at
least a few One-Stop-Government projects were identified , leading to
the conclusion that One-Stop-Government is a concept pervasive
through all of Europe.
The infant state of One-Stop-Government is also reflected when
projects are grouped according to the year started (see table 6). As al-
ready mentioned, actual implementation was one of the criteria to select
the project. Therefore, hardly any projects which started early and have
failed until today were included. Of the still „running“ projects - or ex-
amples -, only 18 projects out of 98 covered started in 1995 or before,
only four projects even before 1990. Since the Dutch OL2000 initiative
accounted for 15 start-ups in 1996, more and more projects are started
18
 Overview

each year. (Not reflected in this table are the actual numbers of one-
stop-shops. For example, the Finnish one-stop-initiative, counted as one
project, resulted in many one-stop shops.) Most projects covered were
started in 1997 and 1998, indicating mostly a pilot status of the proj-
ects. Projects listed in 1999 are mostly in the planning stage also.

Year # of projects started

before 1990 4
1990-1994 14
1995 7
1996 21
1997 18
1998 14
1999 or planned 10
Table 6: # of projects in year started (for interpretation, see text; NOTE: non-
One-Stop-Government projects not counted; one project date not known)

To conclude, several typical models of One-Stop-Government

projects appear to be implemented in more than one European country
(see table 7). The first is the government locator, used as a first-stop for
information on government services, increasingly including few, ex-
perimental online-transactions. The main focus of these applications is
mainly informational. A typical example of this can be found on the lo-
cal level in Parthenay or on the national level in Denmark. Similar, but
using a different technology, are call-centers referring to most govern-
ment services, of which prime examples can be found in Belgium.
A second model is the citizen’s office, a physical office where sev-
eral public services in the realm of registration and licensing are of-
fered. Such offices, as explained above, can be found in Austria and
Germany. In Finland, even more services are integrated in physical lo-
cations. However, these offices fall into a convenience store type
model, and basically offer those services which are available from the
particular administrative entity, which is in most cases the local gov-
ernment.
True one-stops are more often found in physical one-stop-shops
for businesses, either for business licenses or construction permits and
related matters. This is a fourth model. Such offices can be found in It-
aly and in Spain (the Unified Management office).

19
One-Stop-Government in Europe

As far as citizens are concerned, true one-stops, again in physical

locations mostly, can be found in social services, e.g. unemploy-
ment/workforce development or social security/health/welfare matters
(see Ede in Netherlands or ONE in U.K.). As many difficult experi-
ences in the Netherlands show, these projects are at a very early stage.
Finally, not really One-Stop-Government but frequently men-
tioned, is electronic filing, mostly of taxes or wage-reports. Because
these projects explore the use of electronic media, they can be seen as
relevant components for One-Stop-Government applications (see
above, section 1).

Model Type Delivery Policy Area Examples

Channel
Government First-Stop a) WWW All and misc. a) Denmark;
Locator government Parthenay,
France
b) Call-Center b) Belgium
Green Phone
Citizen’s of- Convenience Physical Lo- Citizen regis- Austrian,
fice Store cation tration, car Finnish and
registration, German citi-
licences zen offices
Business True one-stop Physical lo- Business li- Italian single
One-Stop cation censes, con- business
struction counters; Uni-
permits, real- fied Man-
estate agement Of-
fice, Spain
Social serv- True one-stop Physical lo- Social serv- Ede, Nether-
ices One- cation ices, welfare, lands; Belgian
Stop health, unem- and Austrian
ployment unemploy-
ment agencies
(Electronic Not really WWW Tax and wage Tax-filing
Filing) One-Stop- reporting projects in
Government, France, Ger-
but possible many and UK
future com-
ponent
Table 7: Typical models of One-Stop-Government in Europe

20
 Overview

Most One-Stop-Government projects are found on the local level

of government. This is a universal finding of all case-studies (except,
possibly, France). Several hypotheses for explaining this focus exist:
• The local level of government is most often the prime level of
service delivery;
• Local government is also more unified than regional or federal
governments;
• The competitive climate among local governments, even interna-
tionally (see Austrian case-study), creates more incentives to ex-
periment with One-Stop-Government;
• One-Stop-Government might be a countermeasure after spacial
concentration of local governments has distanced government from
the public in smaller townships.
However, the local focus doesn’t mean that national governments
do not have a role in promoting and cooperating in One-Stop-
Government projects, even in non-unitary states. As will be explained
below, crucial legal mandates and organization capabilities fall in their
domain. This is exemplified, among others, by the case studies of
France and Finland, which show a negative and a positive example of
central influence on developing One-Stop-Government projects. As to
why they are important in legal and financial regards, will be explained
in the next and final section of this introduction.

4.6 Typical Barriers

The infant state of One-Stop-Government projects can be explained by

the complexity of barriers which need to be overcome. The findings of
the national reports in this regard are consistent with those of other
studies (Lips and Frissen, 1997; Intergovernmental Advisory Board,
1998; Bent, Kernaghan et al., 1999). Six key areas can be distinguished.
Delaying projects are
1. lack of organizational co-operation and
2. missing legal regulations, mostly of digital signatures and privacy
matters.
Necessary pre-conditions of One-Stop-Government are appropri-
ate infrastructures, both in regard to
3. technology and
4. human factors.

21
One-Stop-Government in Europe

Crucial for advancing projects are

5. appropriate funding, both in regard to amount and method, and
6. political support.

i) Organizational cooperation
While horizontal and vertical fragmentation of public administration is
the cause for One-Stop-Government (see section 1), it is at the same
time one of the key barriers for its implementation. In many countries,
the federal structure is a problem. On the one hand, One-Stop-
Government seems to be in the need of strong leadership from the na-
tional leadership. Programs in Finland and the Netherlands have prof-
ited from them. In France and Spain, disinterest by the federal govern-
ment can be blamed for hindering progress towards One-Stop-
Government. On the other hand, the local level is the prime area for ex-
periments – Europe-wide, cities and communities are the “laboratories
of One-Stop-Government”. However, coordinating local with federal
efforts seems to be an area not well developed in most countries.
A second aspect of organizational cooperation is horizontal coop-
eration, e.g., coordinating efforts between different departments. As the
case of Finland shows, the “culture of cooperation” is still underdevel-
oped, despite strong federal encouragement. Building trust between
agencies, and maybe advancing this by awards honoring inter-
organizational cooperation, as Bates suggests in the Irish report, are
policy areas in need of development for advancing One-Stop-
Government.
The main problem will remain. In any One-Stop-Government
project, power structures and balances are affected. Fear of losing
power over human, legal and financial resources will always restrain
particular agency heads from participating, as case studies of one-stop-
shops in Austria, France, Finland and Germany show.
To complicate matters further, One-Stop-Government is fre-
quently crossing the line to the private sector. As the Dutch Ede health
project, the Austrian car-registration or the Belgian Small and Medium
Enterprise Innovation web-site show, public and private service provid-
ers can share in the delivery of services. How difficult it is to cooperate
between private sector service providers, who operate for profit, and
public service providers, who have to pursue goals of access and equal
opportunity, has been shown in the case of Bismark, Germany, where

22
 Overview

the (privatized) Post refused to join in the one-stop-service centers in

rural areas.

ii) Legal issues

All national reports mention that implementing digital signature legis-
lation would mean overcoming an important barrier to One-Stop-
Government. Obviously, this refers to those One-Stop-Government
models delivered electronically. Creating a trusted framework for digi-
tal authentication and integrity is also seen as crucial to e-commerce in
general. However, strictly organizational, technical and legal issues
might soon be resolved when the EC’s guideline for digital signatures
(Europäische Kommission, 1998) is implemented.
Experience from Germany, the country with the only implemented
digital signature law at the time of the survey, shows two lessons. The
first is that digital signature legislation is only a beginning. Concrete
applications have to be developed, and they require a lot more legal
changes. Individual laws, governing both the operation of public ad-
ministrations and policy-specific issues, have to institute digital signa-
tures as an accepted way of identification and authentication. This pro-
cess is even longer than drafting a digital signature law which only
covers provisions for creating and managing digital signatures in a
trusted manner.
The second reason why hopes in digital signature legislation might
be overrated is that compared to the many other obstacles, the digital
signature issue is a fairly easy, technical matter. These are being ad-
dressed by the EU directive. Considerably more uncertainty remains in
regard to achieving inter-organisational cooperation and funding.
Another legal issue for One-Stop-Government is data protection.
Here, some countries have less strict or stricter rules providing for data
protection and security than others. This conflicts with the goal of inte-
gration. In general, intra-organisational exchange of data is limited. For
One-Stop-Government, an integration of diverse data repositories
would be recommendable (see, for example, the British ACCESS case).
And thirdly, if no progress can be made voluntarily, certain or-
ganizational changes or funding directives need to be formalized into
statutes. Passing such laws against the inertia of the traditional bureauc-
racy and their unwillingness to rearrange power will be a difficult task,
as the case of Finland shows.

23
One-Stop-Government in Europe

iii) Technical infrastructure

One-Stop-Government requires IT support. Developing appropriate
technical infrastructures is therefore mandatory for One-Stop-
Government. While in the past this has meant integrating a few main-
frame applications to be delivered at a common terminal, or installing
an integrated client-server architecture, web-based and to some extent
call-center based One-Stop-Government requires a full-fledged elec-
tronic network between agencies, including applications for communi-
cation (E-Mail) and CSCW. This importance is reflected in the authors
choices to include government networks (UK’s Government-wide Se-
cure Intranet) and workflow applications (Salzburg; PBFlow, Belgium)
as case-studies.
The corollary to digital signature legislation in terms of technical
infrastructure is electronic filing, e.g., processing transactions across
the Internet. Electronic One-Stop-Government will require various
forms of electronic filing. Therefore, tax filing projects such as Ifile in
the UK and ELSTER in Germany are relevant for One-Stop-
Government.
One-Stop-Government will partly rely on integrated platforms for
service delivery (see the German MEDIA@Komm competition winners
Nürnberg and Bremen). These communication platforms or frameworks
will include secure and authenticated message processing and payment
functions. The expenses for building these are most likely to be shared
by the public and private service providers (see for example, the Irish
Ennis-town project). For such a platform, which will also include inter-
faces to a multitude of proprietary systems, old and new, standardiza-
tion is necessary. The difficulties on agreeing on the same EDI-
standards in the case of change of residence are shown by the SPACE-
project, which failed to realize this goal.

iv) Integration in existing processes

The case studies show that in addition to technology, an appropriate
“human factors” infrastructure needs to be build. This does not only re-
fer to new IT skills. One-Stop-Government requires new cognitive,
communicative and physical skills of both public employees and the
customers. How physical and automated aspects of the new “informa-
tion system” of One-Stop-Government will be divided is unclear, and
so are consequences for the humans in this system. Finland has been a

24
 Overview

pioneer in addressing extra training needs with instituting a training

program of general case workers. All employees in the German citi-
zen’s offices had to undergo additional training.
The qualities of One-Stop-Government, such as integrated and fast
service, might also be at odds with quality factors for specific public
services. In social and health services, these might be privacy and ex-
tensive counselling. In the citizen office of Unna and Rüsselsheim,
more complex services are deliberately not offered. Experience in Unna
showed that neither employees nor customers were happy to deal with
some social service issues in an One-Stop-Government environment.
Finally, before technology will lead to actual increases in effi-
ciency and effectiveness, organisations and work-flows must be “re-
engineered”. Too often today, IT support stops beyond the WWW-
window, and applications delivered via e-mail are printed out and proc-
essed like all traditional ones. The importance of re-engineering first
before experimenting with technology is guiding the development of
the Dutch OL2000-program. In France and Italy, however, efforts for
simplifying procedures are so cumbersome, that IT support for the un-
changed process is already seen as an appropriate measure to increase
efficiency and effectiveness. This tension between re-engineering and
developing One-Stop-Government front-ends needs to be subjected to
further research, especially in regard to success and failure of individual
projects.

v) Funding
As with all IT projects, funding is a crucial issue for One-Stop-
Government projects. This is even more so as they are inter-
organisational projects. This presents high obstacles for funding, be-
cause in normal budgets funds are appropriated for each agency and
their tasks individually. Inter-organisational projects “fall through the
cracks”.
What helps in this situation is funding from higher levels of gov-
ernment, and/or sharing funding in public-private partnerships. Higher
levels of government have often budget authority over lower levels of
government, at least to some extent. Thus, policy decisions at this level
need to be taken in account in order to appropriate funds for One-Stop-
Government projects. Also, alternative means such as awards for best
practices need to be found.

25
One-Stop-Government in Europe

Both reliance on upper levels and contests, awards, or, for this
matter, EU-funded projects, has its pitfalls. While these funds often
help to launch projects, funds only last for a certain, limited time. For
institutionalising projects, funds are rarely available (see Netherlands,
Belgium, and UK, where all authors have pointed out this problem in
particular). A long term strategy for funding these projects, however, is
missing.
If funds are not available from the public sector, a turn towards the
private sector is necessary. This can either mean to join with the con-
sumers in developing One-Stop-Government. While it might be think-
able to let SMEs and big business pay for such projects, the citizen is
not. In these cases, services need to be offered which offer a win-win-
win-situation for service providers, operators of telecommunications
and network infrastructures, and citizens. This will take some time;
projects in Nürnberg and Bremen, to some extent in Ennis, Ireland,
have been started.

vi) Political support

Lastly, and perhaps most important, is political support for One-Stop-
Government. This is the unanimous finding of all case studies. At least
to some extent, problems of organizational cooperation, building infra-
structures, integrating processes and providing funding depend on
strong backing from the political leadership. All successful projects
presented in the case studies show a strong political leader in the back-
ground, promoting the particular project.
As political determination is also the crucial success factor in gen-
eral public administration reform (Naschold, 1996), the political task of
the future is to couple public administration reform and information
technology initiatives, and operationalize them in developing customer-
oriented public administrations, one form of which is One-Stop-
Government.

5. Outlook

Correlating with the infant state of One-Stop-Government is the uncer-

tainty about its value, both for citizens and public administrations.
While integration of services holds obvious advantages at first sight, the
criteria or the perspective for integration is unclear. First-stop One-
26
 Overview

Stop-Government integrates “access information” to a universality of

services; while convenience store and true one-stop types deliver actual
services (Caron, 1999), but of a more restricted range. Convenience
store types often integrate services not from customers point-of-views,
but from the administration’s point-of-view regarding what is organi-
zationally and technically feasible. True one-stops are oriented to a va-
riety of events, but also target-groups. In effect this means that “con-
structing administration from outside in” is very difficult if the “out-
side” is not structured. It also explains why most of the time One-Stop-
Government is still constructed from inside-out.
How can the customers, or, to be more precise, their demands of
public administration, be addressed most effectively? Should there be
specialized delivery options for target groups? If so, on what level do
they need to be aggregated? Are three groups, business, citizens and
tourists, sufficient, or should there be finer categories, such as con-
struction companies, car-dealerships, seniors, students, day-tourists, and
business-travellers? Or should there be an event-based One-Stop-
Government, targeting all needs in the case of moving, creation of a
business, retirement, unemployment, loss of wallet, car-theft, and so
on? What is the value of One-Stop-Government, which only combines
services of one or even more layers of government, without specifically
integrating them according to one of these aspects?
Categories such as type of One-Stop-Government (first-stop, con-
venience store, true one-stop) and delivery channels (physical location,
web-based/Internet, kiosks, call-centers) can only shine a spotlight on
some aspects of One-Stop-Government. Other such spotlights are
needed and must ultimately be consolidated into a complete model of
One-Stop-Government. One spotlight certainly needed is “structure”.
As Bent, Kernaghan et al. (1999) suggested, the organization of the
services is a crucial issue. Who owns the delivery of services? As One-
Stop-Government almost certainly implies delegating service delivery
one way or the other, concepts are needed how costs (and potential
revenue) between service providers and “owners” of services can,
should, or must be divided. Especially if private service providers be-
come involved, such issues become tantamount. This would mean to
expand on the above cited differentiation of one-stop-governemnts ac-
cording to structure. A future assessment of One-Stop-Government
should also include this dimension and elaborate it further.

27
One-Stop-Government in Europe

6. References

Bent, Stephen, Kernaghan, Kenneth, and Marson, Brian D. (1999) Innovations

and Good Practices in Single-Window Service, Canadian Centre for
Management Development.
Caron, Daniel and Bent, Stephen (1999) Collaboration in Building Single-
Window Projects: The Art of Compromise.
Europäische Kommission (1998) Communication... common framework for
electronic signatures. Com(1998)297/2. Brussel.
Federal Benchmarking Consortium (1997) Serving the American Public. Best
Practices in One-Stop Customer Service.
www.npr.gov/library/papers/benchmrk/onestp.html. Washington, D.C.,
NPR.
Fountain, Jane E et. al. (1994) Customer Service Excellence. Using Informa-
tion Technologies to Improve Service Delivery in Government. Strategic
computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard.
Frissen, Paul (1997) The virtual state. Postmodernisation, informatisation and
public administration. Brian D. Loader (ed.): The Governance of Cyber-
space. London/New York, Routledge: 111-25.
Intergovernmental Advisory Board (1998) Foundations for Successful Inter-
governmental Management. Federal, State, and Local Government Ex-
periences. Washington, D.C.
Kißler, Leo, Bogumil, Jörg, and Wiechmann, Elke (1994) Das kleine Rathaus.
Kundenorientierung und Produktivitätssteigerung durch den Bürger-
laden Hagen. Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.
Lenk, Klaus (1997) The challenge of cyberspatial forms of human interaction
to territorial governance and policing. Brian D. Loader (Ed.): The Gov-
ernance of Cyberspace. London/New York, Routledge: 126-35.
Lips, Miriam, and Frissen, Paul (1997) Wiring Government. Integrated public
service delivery through ICT. ITeR Nr. 8. Alphen aan den Rijn/Diegem,
Samson BedrijfsInformatie bv: 67-164.
Naschold, Frieder (1996) New Frontiers in Public Sector Management. Trends
and Issues in State and Local Government in Europe. Berlin, New York,
Walter de Gruyter.
Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (1999) Integrated Service Delivery:
Governments Using Technology to Serve the Citizen International, Fed-
eral, State, and Local Government Experiences. Washington, D.C., GSA.
Osborne, David, and Gaebler, Ted (1993) Reinventing Government. How the
Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. New York,
Plume/Penguin.
Seidle, F. Leslie (1995) Rethinking the delivery of public services to citizens.
Montreal, Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP).
28
 Overview

Taylor, John et. al. (1996) Innovation in Public Service Delivery. Information
and Communication Technologies, hrsg. von William H. Dutton. Oxford,
Oxford University Press: 265-82.

7. Appendix

See following pages.

29
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
1. Verfahrensexpress A 1997 O Plant construction OS PL
2. Vorarlberg A 1970s O Plant construction OS PL
3. Salzburg A mid- O Building permits OS PL Workflow!
90s
4. Fürstenfeld A 1996 O CR, CaR, L CS PL Forms downl.
5. Waidhofen A 1995 O CR, CaR, L CS PL
6. WU-Signaturkarte A 1997 P Student affairs CS K, WWW, PL Signature cards
7. Grieskirchen A 1996 O Plant construction OS PL Internet planned
8. Freie Kfz- A 1997 O CaR OS PL Transfer of
Zulassung authority
9. Linz A 1994 O Business licensing OS PL Electr. Filing
planned
10. Zell am See A 1994 O CR, L, Plant constrution CS OS PL, WWW Informal
11. AMS A 1998 Plan Unemployment OS PL, K, WWW Electr.services
planned
12. Liesing A 1998 O CR, L CS PL Ext. IT suppot
13. BP3000 B 1998 P All government FS CC
14. Infolijn B n.a. O All government FS CC Web-site pl.
15. WIS-KISS B 1994 O Unemployment n.a. K Job exchange da-
tabase
31
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
16. KMOLOKET B 1997 P SME FS WWW Other services
planned; public
found.
17. IWT-KMO B 1997 P SME innovation OS WWW Only informational
18. EDISON B 1993 O Schools (internal g.) CS WWW All forms inte-
grated
19. PBFlow/AciPro B 1996 P Building permits n.a. WWW Workflow
20. Tel vert B 1989 O All government FS CC PL
21. Hotjob-SIC B 1999 P Unemploymenet n.a. K Job exchange da-
tabase
22. Antwerp DMA B 1997 O Misc. government CS WWW MANAP
23. Charleroi B 1996/7 O CR CS PL (K for I)
24. Helsingör DK 1998 O CR, misc gov., health, CS WWW
tax
25. Naestved DK 1998 Op CR, misc gov., health, CS WWW
tax
26. C&T DK 1994/6 Op Tax, business tax CS WWW
27. Danmark.dk DK 1997 Op All government CS OS WWW Informational
28. Min. of Bus and DK 1996 O Business matter OS WWW Builid up
Ind
29. One-Stop-Shops FIN 1993/6 O Tax, CR, social, unem- CS PL 9 fully integrated
32
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
ployment, police, post
30. Net-Entreprise F 1999 P Tax and wage reporting OS WWW
31. Isère F 1997 O Misc. gov. FS WWW
32. Parthenay F 1997 O Misc. gov. FS WWW
33. Unna D 1984 O CR CS PL
34. Hagen D 1990 O CR, CaR CS PL e-serv. Planned
35. Rüsselsheim D 1995 O CR CS PL
36. Bismark D 1992 O CR,CaR, Packet, misc. CS PL Non-governemtn
included
37. Nürnberg D 1998 Plan Misc. gov CS WWW, K
38. Bremen D 1998 Plan Misc.gov CS OS WWW, K
39. DiBIS D 1995 O All governemnt FS WWW K e-mail
40. ELSTER D 1998 O Tax n.a. WWW Electronic filing
41. SPACE Int. 1996- disc. CR OS PL Electronic file,
98 standardization
42. KIMSAC IRL 1995- Pilot Welfare, unemployment FS K Only information
98
43. Vehicle Reg. Tax IRL 1998 O Vehicle registration FS K Electroni services
44. Laois IRL 1997 O Misc. gov CS K Information
45. Donegal IRL 1997 O Misc gov CS PL Citizen office
46. Meath IRL 1998 O Misc. gov CS Pl Citizen office
33
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
47. CSD, Easterhn IRL 1992 O Health OS PL CC
48. NCIC IRL 1997 O Helath/welfare OS PL
49. Northside Partner- IRL 1991 O Unemployment OS PL
ship
50. CID, NatL Soc. IRL 1997 O Social services FS CD, database
Serv
51. Life events data- IRL 1999 Plan Misc. gov, social ser- FS OS WWW
base vcies
52. Ennis IRL 1996 O Misc. gov n.a. WWW K Information only
53. Palermo I 1999 P Business licens OS PL
54. Bologna I 1999 P Businesse license OS PL
55. Calabria Health I 2000 Plan Health care OS? PL
(plann
ed)
56. Bari I 1997 O Misc L CS PL
57. Arezzo I 1997 O Foreigners regis. CS PL
58. IRS I 1998 O Tax OS K Mostly informa-
tional
59. Bologna Single I 1995 O Misc. gov CS K
Window
60. South Tyrol I 1997 O Tourism, misc gov CS K Information only
34
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
61. Siena I 1996 P Misc. gov CS K
62. Milano I (Plann P Misc.gov CS K
ed)
63. Delft NL 1996 O CR OS PL WWW
64. Leiden NL 1996 * Youth *= temp. Not op. CS WWW Target groups
65. Meppel NL 1996 ** Misc. gov **= partly op. CS WWW CC
66. Aalburg NL 1996 O Misc. gov. CS K Target groups
67. Almelo NL 1996 O Health CS PL Target groups
68. Alphen aan den NL 1996 O Health CS PL Target groups In-
Rijn formation only
69. Eindhoven NL 1996 O Misc. gov OS PL Tongelre citizen‘s
office
70. Emmen NL 1996 O Welfare CS PL Target groups
Information only
71. Utrecht NL 1996 O Health welfare CS PL WWW Web based on
phys. One-stop
Target groups
Information only
72. Amsterdam region NL 1996 P Real-estate CS WWW
73. The Hague NL 1996 P Real-estate OS PL Information
74. Tilburg NL 1996 O Real-estate OS PL Information
35
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
75. Tyksstratdiel NL 1996 O Real-estate OS PL WWW
76. Enschede NL 1996 O Real-estate/misc. gov. OS WWW
77. Nijmwegen NL 1996 O Real-estate/misc.gov. OS PL
78. Ede NL 1994 O Welfare OS PL
79. DIBA Province of E 1997 O Misc. gov. CS WWW
Barcelona
80. Electr. Proc. Bar- Ê 1998 O Tax, CR, Fines CS WWW
celona
81. Port Authority of E 1998 O L, Tax CS WWWCC
Barcelona Unified
Access Service
82. Catalan Autonom, E 1998 O Misc. gov FS CC
Gov.
83. Irun City Council E 1997 O Misc. gov CS PL, WWW, CC
Single Window
84. Madrid Regional E 1991 O Misc. gov CS K, PL, WWW Mostly informa-
Transport CC tional
85. Unified Managt. E 1990 O Business L. OS PL All procedures in-
Office tegrated
86. Galician Autonom. E 1994 O Tax, Business L., Fines CS PL, WWW, K,
Government Misc. gov. CC
36
Introduction Appendix
# Name Co. Since Status Policy Type D.C. Comments
87. Vitoria Local E 1990 O CR, Tax FS PL, WWW, K,
Council CC
88. Barcel. Local E 1988 O CR, Tax FS CC
Council Misc. gov
89. Infoville E 1995/7 O Misc. gov CS WWW, K Network interac-
tive services
90. GSI UK 1998 Op General gov n.a. WWW Network
91. IForm UK 1997 P Tax and Welfare n.a. K and WWW Elec. Filing
92. E-commerce tax UK 1999 Plan Tax n.a. K www Elec. Filing
93. ONE UK 1999 P Unemployment FS OS CC
94. Lewisham UK 1998 O Welfare OS PL
95. ACCORD UK 1998 Plan Welfare n.a. n.a. Integrated database
96. Study single busi- UK 1999 Study Business license OS WWW
ness
97. Bus. With govt UK 1999 Plan Business license FS WWW
98. Jigsaw UK 1999 Plan Agriculture services CS PL

NOTES: Co.= country; D.C. = Delivery Channels; STATUS: O = Operational, P = Pilot/Prototype, Plan = Planned; TYPES:
FS =First Stop; CS = Convenience Store; OS = True One-Stop; DELIVERY CHANNELS: PL= Physical Location; WWW =

37
Introduction Appendix
Web-Site/Internet; K = Kiosk, CC = Call Center; POLICIES: CR = Civil Registration (Passports, ID-cards, etc.); CaR = Car
Registration, L = Licenses; misc. gov: miscallaneous government services
Bent, Stephen,Kernaghan, Kenneth, &Marson, Brian D. (1999) Innovations and Good Practices in Single-Window Service,
Canadian Centre for Management Development.
Caron, DanielBent , Stephen (1999) Collaboration in Building Single-Window Projects: The Art of Compromise.

38

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