In the Media

The digitalization of government and administration is set to progress rapidly – and high demands are being placed on digital solutions for fulfilling public tasks. Stephanie Kaiser is the Chief Product Officer of DigitalService. In this podcast, the expert in software development and IT projects describes the tasks of this unusual position, how it works and what innovations are created in the process.

Good digitalization rebuilds trust. The past few months have given me much to reflect on: it's frustrating to see important future-oriented projects – like digitalization – silently cut due to austerity measures, while administrative modernization continues to be sidelined. […] What concerns me even more is that the latest election results have done so little to shift our perspective on how crucial a well-functioning state is for maintaining trust in democracy.

The administration is focused on security, including in the procurement of digital solutions and cooperation with service providers. However, this way of thinking prevents modern, state-of-the-art applications, says Anja Theurer, CFO of the Federal Digital Service. Why, in order to do things better in the future, we need to say goodbye to a popular contractual basis.

The Work4Germany Fellowships 2025 are starting earlier than usual: in April. Teams from federal administrations and authorities have until October 25 to apply for expert support for their projects.

New ways of working in the federal administration: the “Work4Germany 2024” fellowship program has started. In 14 projects, teams from the ministries and authorities are working together with fellows – experts from the private sector – to promote digital change in the administration.

Service Standard 2.0: understandable, practical and effective, please. A year ago, I asked you here: “Do you know the Service Standard?” The answer was that the guidelines, which aim to improve the quality and transparency of the Confederation's digital services for citizens, businesses and public authorities, are still largely unknown. This was confirmed by the feedback to the column at the time. Few people knew the standard and practically no one actively used it.

In cooperation with the DigitalService, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community will work on further developing the existing Servicestandard by the end of the year. The aim is to define a binding minimum level for the quality of OZG online services and other government online offerings.

If political goals cannot be translated into digital processes, it costs a lot of time and money – for citizens, companies, and the administration. The requirements for laws have changed significantly as a result of digitalization. However, they are still written in the same way as they were decades ago, “both in terms of skills and methodological approaches”, said Stephanie Kaiser, Chief Product Officer at Digitalservice des Bundes, a state-owned limited company within the remit of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI).

What can Germany learn from other countries? While countries such as Estonia, the UK, Singapore, and the USA have made impressive progress in the digitalization of their administration, we are faltering in many areas. When people look abroad, they often say, “But we're different. That wouldn't work for us.” I see it differently. […] When examining digitalization in other countries, we need to consider which models and approaches should primarily serve as inspiration and what could be successfully transferred to the German administration and our current challenges.

An inefficient public administration not only disappoints citizens, but also hinders the implementation of innovations. In a recent study, acatech examines the status quo and presents various options for action.

In the 50th edition of the “Female TechTalk” podcast, software engineer Hanna Prinz is our guest. She works at DigitalService on the transformation of public administration through digital solutions. She provides insights into her exciting day-to-day work, in which she develops citizen-oriented services in interdisciplinary teams.

If you want to modernize the administration, you have to take a holistic approach – from personnel to structures to technical equipment. Otherwise, it will never work: employees are socialized into structures that shape a work culture, which in turn reinforces structures. At the same time, technology can only be used sensibly if structures and processes allow it.

Though Germany lags on digital government, Stephanie Kaiser, Chief Product Officer, shares how Germany’s DigitalService is supporting government reform with digital-ready legislation, user-centred software development and ushering in new ways of working.

Cloud: the foundation for user-centered development. When I store, organize and use my data digitally in my private life, I do it via a cloud. The advantages? I don't need to free up storage space for my vacation pictures on my computer. I can access important documents securely from anywhere. And – and this is the most pleasant point for me – I don't have to worry about program updates or protecting the data stored there myself. Using a cloud makes my (digital) life easier.

After a year of use, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI), the federal DigitalService and the National Regulatory Control Council (NKR) have given a positive assessment of the Digitalcheck. It was developed to check the digital feasibility of proposed legislation and makes it possible to avoid obstacles to digitalization from the outset.

Instead of domain bloomers, we need a digital umbrella brand for Germany! Are you familiar with the websites arbeit-sicher-und-gesund.de, einmalzahlung200.de, or amla-frankfurt.eu? Never heard of it? Behind all these websites are official offers from the public sector. However, this cannot be recognized, let alone verified, via the domains.

In episode 5, Olli and Martin delve into the world of digital administration with Stephanie Kaiser, Chief Product Officer of the Federal DigitalService. As a pioneer in the field of digital transformation, Stephanie not only shares her vision of a digital future for Germany's administration, but also concrete insights into her work.

Administration meets the private sector – these are the central components of the “Work4Germany” fellowship, which the DigitalService Bund runs every year. In this interview, Program Manager Christian Müller explains the special features of the collaboration between civil servants and transformation experts – and why “courage” plays a central role.

Courage and a willingness to change are required when teams from ministries and external fellows tackle digitalization together – but it's worth it.

Do you feel the same way? Over the holidays, with family and friends, I once again realized how important and beautiful community is. How much better things can be – despite often different perspectives. Fortunately, we are not on our own in our efforts to create a digital state. […] The power of this collaborative work can be observed particularly in so-called “Communities of Practice”.

The digital check was introduced at the start of 2023. Ernst Bürger, Head of the “Digital Administration; OZG Control” department at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs, and Stephanie Kaiser, Chief Product Officer of the Federal Digital Service, take stock in an interview.

Digital state in 40 years? Wait a minute! 40 years: That's how long it would take for everyone in Germany to use online government services – if things continue as they are now. This is the result of the new eGovernment Monitor. The study has been published since 2010 and provides a year-by-year picture of the digitization of German administration.

DigitalService CEO Christina Lang on digital solutions for an age-old state apparatus and cooperation between start-ups and ministries.

Do you know the Servicestandard? The British administration is regarded globally as a role model when it comes to good, citizen-oriented digitalization. But why is that? […] A key factor for success was a binding Servicestandard that verifiably defines what “good” digital services are. To integrate services into the central government website gov.uk, all 14 standard points must be met. […] And where do we stand? Experts and the public criticize the lack of user-centeredness in administrative digitalization.

Why isn't the digitalization of administrative offices and authorities working? A lack of technology and money is one problem – analog thinking on the part of lawmakers is another. The German government now wants to change that.

Public Money? Public Code! The approach sounds logical: the source code of software financed with public money should be publicly accessible and reusable. This strengthens trust in the state's digital offerings – and pays off for the administration. Nevertheless, the federal republic still lags far behind this ideal. In the OZG context, only isolated solutions have been developed openly, and even fewer are built on existing code. That's why I'd like to take this opportunity to make a plea for “Public Money, Public Code”!

“Job with purpose” is not enough. The forecast is bleak: by 2030, there could be a shortage of up to one million skilled workers in the German administration. Almost everyone knows and worries about the high wave of retirements that we are facing. Currently, there are only around two employees under the age of 25 for every ten employees over the age of 55. In order for the state to be able to continue to fulfill its tasks – and this would be jeopardized by such understaffing – the “administration as an employer” urgently needs to become more attractive.

Constructive criticism – The National Regulatory Control Council doesn't just want to complain, but also provide constructive suggestions on how to do things better, according to Chairman Lutz Goebel. In an interview, he talks about the role of the NKR, the Digitalcheck and processes.

Agile work must be put into practice! In the coalition agreement, the government finds clear words: The administration is to become more agile and digital. It must focus on interdisciplinary and creative problem-solving. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done in practice. Anyone who wants to use agile working methods in administration encounters immense challenges. […] So how can we manage the balancing act between genuinely agile working – and that requires nothing less than an entirely new working culture! – and the security and stability that is still expected of the administration system?

In the current broadcast, we take a closer look at the DigitalService of the Federal Government. What makes the organization tick? What is its role? How exactly – and what – does the federal government's central digitization unit work on?

Digital Check? Digital by Design! Almost all of us are familiar with this: in our private lives, many things now run digitally as a matter of course. […] But what happens when we interact with our state? When we want to claim a service to which we are entitled? Then things quickly get complicated. […] But why do we find it so difficult to simply digitalize administrative services? The mistake usually lies at the very beginning: in the legislative process.

DigitalService stands for agility, user-centeredness and interdisciplinarity. The current projects of the young organization show how the digitalization and software development unit of the Federal Government promotes and demands a modern administration.

Never change a running system? […] The opportunities in the digital space are increasing at an ever faster pace, and the habits and wishes of citizens are changing along with them. If you want to be and remain effective, you have to keep up with these changes. At DigitalService, we keep asking ourselves the question: How do we as an organization manage to initiate the necessary changes, accompany them and, in the end, make them permanent? And how do we manage to remain adaptable and open to change in our work?

Christina Lang from DigitalService on the biggest successes, the most insightful failures and her plans for 2023.

Numerous documents and a great deal of respect for the subject of taxes: the property tax return is a challenge for most property owners. To make processing easier, DigitalService has developed a simplified online application. Katja Anokhina describes the wide-ranging project.

Dare transparency, create trust. Citizens’ trust in our state has fallen again, to a historic low in late summer of this year. […] But how can this image be changed? The Federal Government has already named an important lever. “Through more transparency” it wants to “strengthen our democracy”. […] At DigitalService, we already actively practice transparency. […] We make our decision-making just as comprehensible as the motivations for our actions, and advocate free access to resources and knowledge. We call this principle “working in the open”.

Germany needs bright minds to navigate the country through the crises of these times and shape the future with confidence. Here are the “Top 40 under 40” whom Capital believes will do just that. Christina Lang, CEO and co-founder of the German government's DigitalService GmbH des Bundes, is one of the outstanding talents in political parties and government agencies in the category “Politics”.

Without mistakes, there is no learning curve for our state. To err is human. A saying we all know. Mistakes are part of our lives. And yet, the term still has a very negative connotation. […] Mistakes, course corrections or even failure are hardly forgiven in the public perception, especially in politics. […] But anyone who shies away from making mistakes, admitting them and talking about them – for fear of negative consequences, for example – runs the risk of missing out on important insights and learning potential.

Let the data do the talking! Data as a source of information and a resource has been steadily gaining in importance for years – also in politics and administration. Data rooms are being created, data labs are being set up and chief data scientists are being hired. The German government is holding its next digital summit under the motto of the data economy. But what does data-driven, evidence-based action look like in administrative practice? How can we harness data for administrative digitization?

Getting there faster in small steps. The property tax reform is one of the biggest reforms of financial and tax administration in post-war history. The effort involved is enormous. […] This explains the efforts of the Federal Ministry of Finance to use a simple digital solution to facilitate the submission of property tax returns wherever possible and to reduce the associated hurdles. However, there was not much time to realize this idea.

A simplified reporting portal for property tax data is now available. This has been developed in cooperation with citizens. ELSTER users can also use it.

Untying the digitalization knot in an interdisciplinary way. The new coalition agreement prominently states what administrative employees in the states and municipalities also experience daily: “People expect the state to provide easy-to-use and up-to-date digital services that are user-oriented, free of media discontinuity and comprehensive.” But what sounds so clear and obvious as a goal poses major challenges: Processes and responsibilities in the background are often complex and distributed, coordination paths are long, and public structures are designed to provide services in analog form.

On the page “Grundsteuererklaerung-fuer-privateigentum.de”, private owners in the eleven federal states that currently participate in the federal model can submit their property tax return. The exact listing of the federal states can be found on the home page. If owners are unsure whether they can use the portal, they can click through a short questionnaire on the website.

Under the Property Tax Reform Act, all property owners are required to file a “Declaration for Determination of Property Tax Value” (Grundsteuererklärung) in 2022. […] In some federal states, the declaration for an undeveloped plot of land, a one- or two-family house or a condominium can also be made via this website of the Federal Ministry of Finance: https://www.grundsteuererklaerung-fuer-privateigentum.de [Article no longer available online.]

First the problem, then the solution! “Talking about problems creates problems, talking about solutions creates solutions,” said psychotherapist and author Steve de Shazer. From an early age, we learn to think in terms of solutions. […] But if the problem doesn't just affect us, how can we be sure that the solution created in our head, of all things, will actually solve the underlying problem for everyone affected? The simple answer: we can't. This is especially true for our state. The problems that need to be solved by politicians and administrators are complex and often complicated. At the same time, the public typically expects quick – reassuring – answers.

To simplify the submission of the “property tax return for private property” and to support landowners in doing so, the Federal Ministry of Finance has had a online platform developed. It was launched on Monday. Because the Saarland is one of eleven federal states that follow the federal model for property tax, affected owners can use the so-called property tax pilot. [Article no longer available online.]

Citizen-centered? Citizen-centered! Everyone is talking about user-centeredness or, better, citizen-centeredness. Without citizen-centeredness, there can be no modern, digital administration. And without a digital administration, there can be no modern, digital Germany. The new coalition agreement clearly calls for this. But what is behind the buzzword that has been called for years in papers, on panels and in workshops?

Germany lags far behind in an international comparison when it comes to administrative digitalization. To change this, the federal government bought the start-up DigitalService in October 2020. A unique path so far – also internationally. We will be accompanying this exciting journey for the next six months starting in May 2022.

In the administration, people still fax, type, and staple. Christina Lang wants to change that. With her company, she digitalizes ministries. For that to succeed, the new “traffic light” coalition must offer more than new billions.

Imagine if renewing your driver's license were as easy as placing an order online. You know exactly which website to use for the service, type in a search term and find what you're looking for – the option to renew your driver's license.

Administration doesn't like change, and certainly not when someone brings it to it from the outside! Really? At Tech4Germany, the fellowship program of DigitalService4Germany, administration is matched with talent from the private sector. Co-Founder Sonja Anton describes the superpower of joy, how to create and sustain it in a project when cultures collide. In addition to humility and modesty about the task at hand, it is above all the servant mindset that lays the breeding ground for joy in change. And this mindset is something that everyone at DigitalService4Germany must bring to the table – fellows, partners from the ministries, and employees. You can find a great interview by Sonja Anton about Tech4Germany here.

Communication between public health workers gets a new home: the collaboration platform Agora makes it possible to better share, collaborate and process knowledge together across the entire ÖGD. Carolin Bednarz and Ernesto Rodriguez from DigitalService4Germany have closely aligned Agora with the needs of the ÖGD; they had conducted over 70 interviews at the end of 2020 for this reason. In an interview with Dr. Emanuel Wiggerich and Detlef Cwojdzinski, they report on which functional requirements Agora covers and how the platform will be further developed.

Christina Lang has traded in her career as a management consultant for a new challenge: She heads DigitalService4Germany GmbH, an organization that takes care of digital solutions for the state. The GmbH was spun off last year and is wholly owned by the German government – a state-owned startup, so to speak.

With the “Digital Service,” the Chancellor's Office now has an in-house software forge. Expectations are high.