Digital transformation of public administration – how do we become more efficient, more secure and more sovereign?

The 18th «Informatik und Recht» conference of the Swiss association eJustice.ch, held on 18 August at the Rathaus in Bern, was devoted to government IT – and thus in particular to the strengths and challenges of federalism.

In his opening address, Michael Schöll, Director of the Federal Office of Justice, portrayed the digitalisation of public administration as a space of permanent negotiation processes. He described the differing interests involved and the challenges associated with them. Christoph Raess and Serge Guignard of the Federal Office of Justice provided an illustrative example: the BEKJ legislative process on electronic communication in the judicial and administrative spheres. It was initiated by the cantons and the Federal Supreme Court, constitutes a cross-cutting project spanning the Confederation, the cantons and all courts, and is being conducted at a pace that is high for processes of this kind. In the course of it, the Justitia 4.0 project is to be transformed into the justitia.swiss corporation. All of this raises fundamental questions that have so far been settled neither politically nor academically nor in practice. The overarching topic is «digital platforms of the state» – and to some business IT specialists from the private sector this may sound like a contradiction in terms, since in a state context many success criteria that are indispensable in the private sector are excluded from the outset. A new version of the state platform every ten seconds? Unthinkable!

The central guiding questions of the conference were – always with reference to government IT:

• How can binding standards be created without restricting federalism too severely?
• Which governance models are suitable for shared digital platforms?
• What role can and should legal foundations play in digital transformation?
• How can Switzerland strengthen its sovereignty and at the same time benefit from international developments?

Standards in a federalist system

In fact, the first question has been answered in Switzerland for more than twenty years. Standardisation takes place through eCH. Unfortunately, many of these standards are unknown to the authorities or of no interest to them. Susanne Kuster, Deputy Director of the Federal Office of Justice, set out how greater bindingness can be created in future by newly setting up the standardisation process. Two essential elements here are the appropriate participation of all levels of government – a tripartite commission with representatives of the cantons, the municipalities and the Confederation has been established for this purpose – and the limitation of the scope of validity: specifically to conceptual, semantic and technical standards. In future, the foundations for standardisation and for the governance of collaboration are to be newly laid down in the Federal Constitution.

Catherine Pugin, Delegate for Digitalisation of the Canton of Vaud, presents government IT from the perspective of the cantons in general and of the Canton of Vaud in particular. Much of what looks at first sight like a technical task is in fact a major political one. What is at stake is dependence on large suppliers and the constitutional order. For the Canton of Vaud, technical and semantic standardisation is the priority, in line with the federal perspective, but it can also envisage organisational standardisation. What is ultimately decisive, as Pugin explained, is the practical benefit in the form of greater efficiency. There is a trade-off with regard to sovereignty as well. More sovereignty at the price of less security, for example, would not be an attractive option. Tereza Cahlikova of HES-SO then analysed the fundamental problem of the digital transformation of the state from a historical and general perspective. Among other things, she traced the long road towards e-voting, which after more than twenty years has still not reached its goal.

Digital sovereignty in the European context

As always, many important conversations took place during the break and over the long lunch. In the afternoon, the topic of «digital sovereignty» took centre stage. Martin Hullin of the Bertelsmann Stiftung gave an overview of the situation in the EU and of the discourse on the topic among the EU member states and in the Brussels institutions. Only 8 per cent of European companies would be able to survive for more than two years if they were cut off from access to non-European technology; more than half would collapse in the first year. Yet dependencies in the digital sphere differ greatly depending on the aspect concerned. This is why the EU Parliament decided in 2024 to build the EuroStack. It is a strategic framework that brings together Europe’s digital infrastructure – from semiconductors to AI – under a single vision. The aim is to achieve digital sovereignty without becoming isolated. Not only are Europe’s own capacities to be strengthened, but global partnerships are also to be fostered. Behind this lies the recognition that sovereignty and innovation have to be considered together. But it is also about values. Instead of «First-to-Market», the goal is «First-to-be-Trusted», and everyone is called upon to act proactively.

Rolf Rauschenbach of the Federal Office of Justice fittingly illustrated this with Switzerland’s dependencies in the area of the eID. On the one hand, its aim is clearly greater digital sovereignty – there is no willingness to accept the eIDs of multinational corporations as de facto standards; on the other hand, this can only be achieved by using their technologies. Scope for action lies, however, in designing the system architecture in such a way that technologies can be exchanged. This is also one of the fundamental principles of the EuroStack.

The «Digital Switzerland» strategy

Daniel Markwalder, Delegate of the Federal Council for Digital Transformation and ICT Steering, then reported on the state of implementation of the «Digital Switzerland» strategy in the federal administration. He explained how the implementation is organised and the accompanying measurement of success, and he presented the current figures. The result is a nuanced picture – with clear progress in education and digital skills, but an ambivalent situation in other areas: access for residents to the online services of the authorities is increasing, for instance, while the availability of public services for businesses is subject to ups and downs. Even so, the Federal Council Committee on «Digitalisation and ICT» and the «Digital Switzerland» advisory board meetings have brought more movement in individual areas. Digital sovereignty is thus a focus topic this year for the second time after 2023. Three years ago the foundations were developed under the lead of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA; now, under the lead of the State Secretariat for Security Policy SEPOS, the task is to develop concrete initiatives.

A summary

My task was to summarise the most important results of the conference in the closing address. My conclusion: we are making substantial progress, because in some areas of government IT there is sufficient willingness to advance and to work together – this willingness is decisive and cannot be replaced by rules. But we must keep reminding ourselves that digital transformation is a cultural process, and that the stakeholders are not only the Confederation, the cantons and the municipalities, but also people in different roles – as staff of the authorities, as residents, as professional users, as representatives of suppliers, as politicians – who substantially shape the pace of this cultural process. We should therefore not forget – as in the private sector – the elephants in the room: the closeness between the administration and local suppliers, the helplessness in dealing with human blockages, and the primacy of culture, which is very hard to accept both for politicians and for business leaders. The use of the technology stack as a tool for orientation could, however, accelerate a great deal, because it makes the amorphous abstractions of «federalist collaboration in government IT» and «digital sovereignty» tangible. For that, though, it would be sensible, if not necessary, to train decision-makers in politics and administration in matters of digital transformation.

There would be much more to report – from the individual presentations, from the conversations, and from what became visible between the lines. With more than a hundred participants, the conference conveyed a profound basic understanding of the challenges and the positions, and there were a number of statements made in passing that were not to be expected in this form – nevertheless, above all, many questions remain open.