National e-participation environment presentation by Niklas Wilhelmsson, Ministry of Justice, Finland - Unit for Democracy, Language Affairs and Fundamental Rights. Steven Clit's slides from the same event here: https://db.tt/BOhhQ0Ex

1. The Finnish eParticipation
Environment
Niklas Wilhelmsson, Ministry of Justice

2. Towards Collaborative Government? (Gov 2.0)
Gov 2.0 refers to modernization of the
way governments engage and collaborate
with citizens and involves policy shifts in
culture and empowerment of citizens,
harnessing the opportunities of new
technologies
Collaboration
Participation
Participation
Transparency
Transparency
Sources: USA Gov/White House 2009, Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce 2009,
Poikola 2009

3. Possibilities & enablers of collaborative government?
People have higher education and more free time than ever,
As well as cheap computing power & networking
⇒ peer production & participation phenomena,
e.g., theories and concepts of:
- Networked information society
- Produsage
- Crowdsourcing
- Wisdom of the crowds
Sources: E.g., Ahlqvist et. al 2008, Benkler 2006, Surowiecky 2004, Shirky 2008,
Howe 2008, Bruns 2008

4. eGovernment 2020 scenarios
Is this what we want?
How do we get here!?
Source: Nordfors et al. 2009 (eGovernment of Tomorrow Future Scenarios for 2020)

5. Accenture: 73 % of Finnish citizens have
tried eGovernment and 43 % prefer
eGovernment channels
100
Opportunity
Converted
Sweden
Finland
Canada
Australia
Citizens’
eGovernment use,
%
Norway Denmark
The
Italy
Netherlands
Malaysia Singapore
USA
Belgium
80
Ireland
Brazil
Germany United Kingdom Spain
Japan
60
Portugal
France
South Africa
Dormant
20
Challenged
40
60
Citizens’ enthusiasm for eGovernment, %
16.6.2006
80

6. Use of online services provided by the public
administration
Available online
services in the
public
administration
(% of total)
Use of online
services provided
by the public
administration
(% of population)
Finland
80 %
50 %
EU 27
51 %
30 %
Ranking: Finland
6.
5.

7. Developing Finnish e-democracy
Aims:
1.
To develop already existing fora. To create a joint portal for all
administrative online consultations
2.
To cooperate with other existing participation fora (eg. media)
3.
To develop methods for finding and making use of dialogue and
discussion in other webfora.

8. National eParticipation Environment
Web based environment for
•
•
•
•
•
Planning of participation (otakantaa.fi)
Deliberative discussions (otakantaa.fi)
Several kinds of consultation (lausuntopalvelu.fi)
Questionnaires, polls, statements (otakantaa.fi, lausuntopalvelu.fi )
Citizen initiatives (national & local level) (kansalaisaloite.fi, kuntalaisaloite.fi)
Enhances and enables dialog and interaction between citizens,
politicians and public servants and improves e-participation
possibilities – at local and national level
In practice: goal is to modernize web-based tools and processes,
into a ”toolbox” that is easy to take into use – by citizens,
associations, government agencies and municipalities

9. eParticipation Environment is part of
Action Programme on eServices and eDemocracy
The Ministry of Finance’s Action
Programme on eServices and
eDemocracy (SADe) develops
comprehensive services for citizens,
companies and the authorities.
Programme is among the
Government’s key projects.
The SADe programme comprises eight
projects, which were chosen based on
significance and cost-efficiency as well
as cross-sector collaboration, customer
focus, quality and innovativeness.
Special attention was paid to the
productivity of municipalities

10. eParticipation Environment
Services Roadmap
Otakantaa.fi
Released 28.6.2012
“Have your say”
– eParticipation Platform
Q2
Q3
Kansalaisaloite.fi
Kuntalaisaloite.fi
Released 1.12.2012
Citizen initiatives
Q4
Q1
2012
2013
Release Q2/Q3/2013
Local initiatives
Q2
Q3
Q4
Lausuntopalvelu.fi
Release Q4/2013
Statements

11. Services: Citizen initiatives

12. Services: Have your say

13. Execution
The E-participation environment project lasts 2010-2014
• run by Ministry of Justice
• Part of larger national SADe eServices and eAdministration acceleration
program run by Ministry of Finance
Iterative approach:
• first official releases in public use 2012, releases continue 2013
Estimated costs 3 million Euros
• technical development and execution 1,5 milloin Euros
Long-term goal is to build an ecosystem of e-services –
with commercial and non-profit add-on services
complementing the services developed in the program

14. Implementation
Marketing campaign starting in autumn 2013
• Campaigning in radio, print media and social media
Presentations of services to public administration
(ministries & communities) and to non-governmental
organizations and in several events
Special citizen jury for commenting both goals and
execution of eParticipation services
Have your say -blog informing current events and steps
in project
Need for marketing varies between services
• Citizen initiatives -service: over 500 000 statements of support given in
web service without any marketing campaign

15. Key benefits
Cost-effective, open
Fast and easy to deploy in organisations
Tools and methods support variety of participation methods
Reaching larger groups of stakeholders
Quality, effectiveness and acceptability of drafting increases
Participation with less time-bound or physical limits
Uniform processes
•
•
increased service level, productivity, impact
Participation planning tools – not just implementation
Less dependency on particular persons, less overlapping information
systems

16. Thank you!