Podcast: Minimum requirements for the operation of EfA services

Last Updated on 1. April 2025 by mgm-marketing

In conversation: Eva Gnüg, Senior Consultant at OZG in organisational projects for the operation and subsequent use of EfA services and a member of the RaBe-EfA working group.
Moderation: Karsten Kneese
Length: 12 minutes

Now also available on Spotify!

Transcription

Karsten: Welcome to a new episode of Innovation Implemented, the mgm podcast on topics of digital transformation. My name is Karsten Kneese, I work in marketing at mgm and today I have the pleasure of talking to my colleague Eva about EfA. To be more precise, Eva-Lotte Gnüg works as a consultant in the OZG context in organisational projects for the operation and subsequent use of: One for All, or EfA services for short. But before we get started, please introduce yourself briefly.

Eva: Hello, thank you. Yes, my name is Eva Gnüg. I have been working as a consultant at mgm for about five years now and I actually have a relatively typical mgm CV. I have been involved in many different industries and projects, from agile project management to setting up operational organisations in public administration. So that’s a pretty broad profile. I have been working in public administration for almost two years now and have been working on a project in Bremen for a little over a year.

What do federal states need to consider when operating or reusing EfA services?

Karsten: Thank you. Today, we are mainly talking about the minimum requirements for the operation of EfA services. These were IT-Planungsrat decided this year. What do federal states actually have to do if they want to operate or offer EfA services themselves or reuse other services? What is important here?

Eva: Perhaps a sentence about the background again. Why am I allowed to say anything at all? I was part of the working group that developed these minimum requirements. That’s why I have a little insight into what was still being discussed in the background. Over time, we realised that some of these minimum requirements needed some help with interpretation in order to understand what these sentences actually mean. This is because the mandate for the minimum requirements assumed that these requirements would be so broad that the federal states would still have their own leeway in their implementation, while at the same time organising the interfaces between the federal states. That’s why it was a bit of a balancing act between being specific and, in turn, formulating in a general way in these minimum requirements. What is important now is that there was this IT planning council decision in April that these minimum requirements for the operation of EfA services apply as guidelines, that they will be evaluated again and then probably apply as mandatory from 2025. It is important that the federal states start implementing these minimum requirements now. Or rather, to create the structures to implement these minimum requirements, and not to wait for whatever decision is made in 2025. In principle, this evaluation will not lead to the minimum requirements being abolished in any way, but rather the aim should be to derive best practices. However, this will only work if we already have initial practical examples that we can then evaluate. From this, we can deduce what works well and what does not and then issue recommendations accordingly. Therefore, let’s start now, implement these in the best possible way, gain experience and then provide feedback to the RaBe-EfA working group. There are representatives from almost all federal states in this working group, and we are then happy to incorporate the feedback.

Karsten: So it’s not an issue that can be put off and we can just see how others do it, but we have to get started. Everything we need is there.

Eva: Exactly. That would be great.

Karsten: So how do these minimum requirements actually help the federal states to organise the follow-up use and operation? They do create a degree of clarity, don’t they?

Eva: That is at least the aim. When I started working in this field, we realised that a lot of the framework conditions for the operation of these EfA services are not yet clear. There is actually a lack of clarity regarding a great many tasks: in the future, will this task lie with the operating country or with the co-using country? Then, of course, I can’t set up an operating organisation because I don’t know which tasks I actually have to perform and which tasks I can rely on the other country to take over. The minimum requirements are designed to resolve this uncertainty and also to provide clarity about contact persons – because it was also a big challenge to figure out who to ask in another country.

What roles and responsibilities do the minimum requirements entail?

Karsten: Okay, you just mentioned the operating country and the co-using country. These are different roles that also exist within the framework of these minimum requirements, which essentially relate to role responsibilities and the support of EfA services. What do you think are the most important points in terms of roles and responsibilities?

Eva: In my opinion, the most important points are these two roles. On the one hand, there is the role of the person responsible for operations and the person responsible for co-use, who should fill these roles. Since these should be exactly the contact persons and the contact points in the providing and co-using countries, respectively. This is to make it easy to distribute and collect information. Therefore, these are the coordinating roles that are needed in any case as a first step. Then the second important point is that in the future, online services are to be regulated and further developed by steering committees. Therefore, it is important here that the various thematic areas in the federal states think about how we can meaningfully bundle our online services so that they fit in with the existing conferences of the line ministries. At the same time, the AG RaBe-EfA is already in contact with FITKO and the specialist ministerial conferences in order to initiate this process from the other side as well. Then it is necessary that we shape this process together, that we do not sit back and wait for others to tell us how it can work. Instead, it is best to think about it and perhaps also make suggestions. Then we have to look at the topics together with the conferences of specialist ministers. How can we best bring this together? Both perspectives are simply needed for this.

Karsten: You mentioned FITKO, AG RaBe-EfA, conferences of specialist ministers. There are a lot of people involved in the process, aren’t there?

Eva: Yes, definitely. That’s what makes it so challenging, to unify all the participants, all the interfaces, all the responsible parties in one process.

Karsten: I can well imagine that, and that’s one more reason to start early.

Eva: Exactly.

How is support regulated?

Karsten: The topic of support is also still part of the minimum requirements. What needs to be considered in terms of support?

Eva: In the minimum requirements, we have specified that first-level support, the first point of contact for citizens, should be organised and provided by the co-using federal states. The co-using federal states are responsible for ensuring this support for citizens. At the same time, the IT Planning Council and the 115 service number decided last year that the 115 network would take over support for EfA online services. As a result, we in the RaBe-EfA working group built on this and said: ‘Okay, there is already a decision that the 115 should take over support. That’s why we’re incorporating this decision into the minimum requirements of the RaBe-EfA working group, so to speak, and saying, ‘Dear federal states, please try to handle this first-level support for citizens via 115’.’ It is now also important that the federal states get in touch with 115, which is already represented in many federal states, and help them to set up these structures. Of course, 115 can and must set certain standards. But they cannot implement it alone, because in the end the federal states have to do it, the service centres themselves have to help build it, and then perhaps they will also be connected to 115. So again, it will take work from all sides.

Karsten: Yes, that’s right. I know 115 as a public authority number, as a central point of contact.

Eva: That’s right.

Karsten: So there is obviously still more to be done to provide support. Can you describe again how that will work exactly?

Eva: Basically, the 115 has already developed a paper. It’s called the 115 Implementation Concept. In this paper, they define their strategy and their vision of what the 115 wants to provide information on in the future and to what extent. There are plans for a so-called pilot function. The idea is that the 115 or the service centre will not just tell citizens, ‘If you have a question about this topic, here is the phone number of the relevant authority. Please call them.’ But actually be able to provide more information. However, we, as the RaBe-EfA working group, do not define exactly how this works. This is also not defined in the minimum requirements, but the 115 has defined it for itself and we refer to it.

Karsten: Okay, thank you. What support does mgm offer in this context? How do we support the administration in the introduction of EfA services?

Eva: We at mgm are already involved in many different implementation projects, or projects in general. Partly in municipalities in the context of shared or subsequent use of online services. We have projects that deal with how these online services can be rolled out in the federal states. At the same time, we are involved in other projects, such as a project in which we are setting up the operating organisation on the side of the operating state. Therefore, we have many different perspectives on this topic and can bring many different views together, and sometimes perhaps provide insights that would otherwise not be available.

Karsten: That brings us to the end. Thank you for your time, Eva. I would like to thank the listeners out there for tuning in. You can find more information about the EfA services, our projects in this context and other things we do at mgm consulting partners in the show notes and on our insights blog. I bid you farewell and say: ‘See you soon’.