Promoting a digital mindset in public service innovation

I had an online chat with project managers Renske Stumpel and Evite van Winkoop of Municipality of Groningen, lead partner of Like!, to reflect on the achievements of the project.

The core aim of Like! was to promote a local digital innovation culture. What do you mean by this?

Renske Stumpel: ”The importance of culture in organisations is often underestimated. In the end, digital innovation is about people. It’s important to start by listening to users, both staff and citizens, because they know best what should be improved and what will bring real results. In this project, we focused on changing the mindset of employees, so they would become enablers of digital innovation in government.”

“Digital innovation is all about understanding how digital tools can be used by people”

Although each local context is different, different cities have been working on similar pilots in Like! How has working together across borders helped these cities?

Renske Stumpel: ”A lot of cities face similar challenges, while they differ for example in level of digital maturity. One city or region may therefore be able to share their lessons learned, so others can develop pilots faster and avoid making the same mistakes. The City of Roeselare did a fabulous job with their city-wide chatbot ‘Bertje’, which is now fully operational on their website. The knowledge they gained during the development process was very valuable to the cities of Aalborg and Groningen, which wanted to use chatbots as well.

You have also worked with smart dashboards. How have these digital dashboards helped cities to improve their services?

Renske Stumpel: ”The dashboards can for example inform policy decisions by providing the right data at the right level, but we also wanted the data to be available and easy to understand for staff and citizens. The dashboard developed by Angus served knowledge-led improvement of their health and social services. Their platform provides accessible demand and performance information for staff and citizens and replaces paper-based systems as the basis for health and social care services.”

In the Vechta pilot, the project uses new digital tools to improve citizen engagement. Do you think these tools can play a role when it is difficult to organise live sessions?

Renske Stumpel: ”Having online tools in place enabled the city of Vechta to engage with citizens without physically meeting them, for example with their ’Raum für Vechta’ virtual tool for participatory city planning. In Groningen, we are currently experiencing a significantly higher interest in the participatory platform ’Stem van Groningen’ due to the corona crisis.”

“Our digital solutions can enable strong communication with citizens without physically meeting them.

You cooperated with the North Sea Region CORA project to develop e-learning. Could you tell a bit more about this?

Evite van Winkoop: ”It is important to make end-users familiar with digital solutions to ensure their optimal use. In Angus, Suffolk and Roeselare, we used a personal approach by introducing ‘digital coaches’, such as the ‘Digital Stars’ in Suffolk - colleagues from within the municipalities who help colleagues with new digital tools.”

”Improving digital skills supports the objective of the CORA project - to connect remote areas with digital infrastructure and services. Organisations need appropriate skills to make use of new digital services. Together with CORA, we developed e-learning for government staff to promote a digital innovation culture.”

The new services developed by Like! even increased cost efficiency. Could you give an example of how digital services can provide a financial benefit to cities?

Renske Stumpel: ”For example, enforcement officers hit the streets in the neighbourhoods of Groningen every day. They visit residents and play a role in providing income support that is available to them. To this end, they need to access several databases using separate authentication systems. Using data virtualisation, Like! developed a system where real-time information can easily be consulted. This has saved a lot of time and increased the officers’ work efficiency.”

To learn more, visit the Like! project's website.

Fostering a digital mindset, Like! boosted public services across the North Sea Region. To find out more, dig into a series of magazines containing a wealth of interesting stories about their work.

Anne-Mieke Feikens is a project advisor at the Joint Secretariat.