For citizens of the brave new on-line world used to doing business at the speed of their internet connections, interacting with the government is often a throwback to the days of showing up at an office to have forms signed, in triplicate.
With initiatives such as the digital signature and an extensive on-line tax filing service, national, county and local governments in Denmark have long seen the advantage of making public services available on-line - both in terms of convenience and saved administration costs.
'You can compare this to building motorways. We're allowing citizens and businesses to communicate more effectively with public institutions,' said Marie Munk, the National IT & Telecom Agency deputy director general.
The centre will compliment the work of the Digital Taskforce, which was created to find ways to increase the number of paperless services the public sector can provide citizens.
Christian Lanng, who will lead the centre, said much of its work will focus on creating open-source structure as a way to ensure the public sector was not subjected to the whims of foreign computer companies.
'Combining an open-source structure with e-governance will improve the ability for Danish companies to compete and improve the quality of the services we provide to citizens,' Lanng said.
Quelle/Source: Denmark.dk, 01.12.2006
