Easy, transparent, secure: public consultation results indicate how digital public services should look like in the EU

The Commission today published the first results of its public consultation on how to boost digital public services in the EU. The survey focused on the next EU eGovernment Action Plan for the period 2016-2020, an initiative for a Digital Single Market. The Action Plan will encourage modernising public administrations, connect them across borders and facilitate easy and efficient interaction with people, organisations and businesses. More than 80% of respondents to the public consultation, mainly individual citizens, highlighted that they expect e-government services to be accessible to all and transparent. They also consider that public services should guarantee that they fully protect personal data. 86% of respondents consider the ‘once-only’ principle as an important practice: people, organisations and businesses should be able to provide information to a public administration only once. The aim is to cut red tape so that users do not have to submit the same data and fill in the same forms again and again. This would also encourage public administrations to adopt more efficient systems. A full analysis of the public consultation will be published by the end of March and the Commission will present its eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 in April 2016. More information can be found here.