The country needs to centralise its efforts within the federal government, the Professor of Public and Financial Management says.
A lack of skilled labour, affordable housing and missed digitalisation – Germany currently faces a number of public policy challenges. In a special series by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Director of the Hertie School’s Centre for Digital Governance Gerhard Hammerschmid comments on how the country has missed the mark in consolidating its digital infrastructure. The article was published on 31 July.
To get itself back on track, Germany needs a single core digitalisation strategy, the Professor of Public and Financial Management recommends. “There are lots of isolated solutions that are staunchly defended by their creators within public administration,” he told the newspaper. Those countries with a successful digital transformation strategy usually allocated the task to a central government body or a powerful ministry, Hammerschmid says. The public administration expert draws his recommendations from a cross-country comparison of digitalisation strategies in the European Union and United Kingdom. An easy way forward is to “digitalise citizen services in high-demand, such as car registrations or the notification about a change in address”, he points out.
Find the whole article "Bitte lösen!" in the print edition of Süddeutsche Zeitung from 31 July 2023.
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Gerhard Hammerschmid, Professor of Public and Financial Management