ŠAVŠ/TAČR Digital Czechia in a Digital Europe

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first place in both the E-Government Development Index, as well as in the E-Participation Index. 16 The United Kingdom undoubtedly owes this placing to its Government Digital Strategy of November 2012, which aimed, among other things, to save £1.7–1.8 billion a year through digitalization 17 – this point was already fulfilled at the turn of 2014 and 2015. 18 The United Kingdom began the process of digitalization of public administration and services by transforming just 25 basic services, such as registering for elections or re-registration of a vehicle under a new owner. Then once it had successful digitalization of several key services, it transferred over to projects aimed at further increasing the number of services provided while seeking to ensure a greater degree of uniformity among projects that were already successfully at the time. 19 The main advantage of the gradual process of digitalization, which is consistent and prioritizes the qualitative aspect of the services provided over their mere quantity, is the gradual increase in the population’s interest in these services. A study carried out among citizens of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Norway shows that there is a growing interest in digital services among the population if the services offered in this way are of high quality. 20 If the Czech Republic aims to increase its citizens’ interest in online services, it must primarily, focus on the quality of the services offered in this way, much more than the mere quantity of said services. With the satisfaction of citizens with the services already offered, there is also a strong demand for further expansion of the digitalization of public administration and services. The United Kingdom was not alone in this strategy; Sweden chose a similar path. The latter first focused on identifying (1) services that its own citizens are most interested in and (2) services that are the most time-consuming from the point of view of civil servants. For example, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency offered only five services for digitalization – but these originally took up to 60% of manual work with forms and were associated with up to 80% of all telephone calls. 21 The Czech Republic should also apply such a pragmatically focused identification of services, which need to be focused on as part of the 16 UN E-Government Survey 2016, the United Nations – UN E-Government Knowledgebase, see https:// publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Reports/UN-E-Government-Survey-2016. 17 Government Digital Strategy, GOV.UK, see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government- digital-strategy. 18 Government saves £18.6 billion for hard working taxpayers in 2014 to 2015, Cabinet Office/HM Treasury, August 2015, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-saves-186-billion-for- hard-working-taxpayers-in-2014-to-2015. 19 Corydon Bjarne, Ganesan Vidhya, Lundqvist Martin, Digital by default: A guide to transforming government. 20 The Citizen View of Government Digital Transformation2017 Findings, Sopra Steria: Delivering Transformation: Together, see https://www.soprasteria.co.uk/docs/librariesprovider41/White-Papers/ the- citizen-view-of-government-digital-transformation-4.pdf?sfvrsn=0. 21 Corydon Bjarne, Ganesan Vidhya, Lundqvist Martin, Digital by default: A guide to transforming government.