Finland Times

Helsinki, December 20 – The Finnish government is expected to endorse its public sector ICT strategy sometimes in early 2013 to bring services and information more closer to individual, officials said.

A proposed strategy on Information Communications Technology for public administration submitted to the government by a panel suggested a number of ways to make the ICT friendly to the people and businesses. 

Before the official endorsement, the government will hold consultation from the stakeholders and take feedback on the proposed strategy that suggested a platform to enable experimentation in service development, establishing a cluster of excellence and launching public sector ICT training programe involving open information.

The strategy paper was presented recently to Minister of Public Administration and Local Government Henna Virkkunen for the government’s consideration, said an official handout.

The proposed ICT plan with a vision to implement by 2020 also said the work related to IT management structures in public administration will also be examined under the strategy.

“It is excellent to see that we now have a comprehensive compilation of the usage of ICT in both central and local government for the first time,” Virkkunen said adding that it was well worth putting close to 2 billion Euros by now for the public sector expenditure per annum for the best use of ICT.

The strategy highlights why smoothly functioning ICT is crucial for the operation and development of public administration, said the minister adding that Finland needs much to do despite the country was leading to in public sector ICT services.

“By making even better use of ICT, we can improve both service quality and productivity considerably. It is especially important to develop services in closer collaboration with the end users’, the Minister observed.

In January 2012, the Ministry of Finance set up a project to devise a strategy for the utilisation of common ICT throughout public administration. A consultation round was organised in October and November.