Context
The Spanish Government authorities are aiming to boost their digital strategy to tackle global challenges and meet EU goals for the digital transformation. However, the speed of implementation varies depending on the financial and technical resources available to the local authorities, where municipalities with under 5 000 inhabitants, generally at some distance from metropolitan areas, face the greatest difficulties. In 2017, 50 per cent of municipalities with under 5 000 inhabitants had not yet begun the transformation process and lacked sufficient resources to implement measures of the digital strategy. Citizens in these municipalities and the local authorities themselves are in a situation of digital vulnerability, unable to yield the day-to-day benefits provided by automation and digitalisation. The Barcelona Provincial Council is a local government institution that promotes the progress and welfare of citizens in its area of influence: the province of Barcelona, with 311 municipalities and a total population of 5 727 615 people. Although the population is mainly concentrated in the metropolitan area, a further 265 000 people live in 180 municipalities with under 5 000 inhabitants. The Provincial Council shares the European vision of ensuring territorial balance and is aligned with the goals of the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 to guarantee people’s rights and life opportunities, regardless of their place of residence.
Objectives
With this as its goal, the Barcelona Provincial Council began implementing the 2018 SeTDIBA: Support Services for Digital Transformation programme to guarantee access to digital services benefiting the whole local population. It especially sought to provide special protection for people living outside urban areas or with difficulties due to limited mobility in the territory, age, language or disability. The central pillars of SeTDIBA are the digital transformation of public services through methodologies focusing on public employee motivation, engagement and commitment, and the creation of digital services easily accessible for the public.
Implementation
The project, which started in 2018 with the roll-out of its pilot programme in 11 local councils, is now fully functional in 103 municipalities and is expected to cover 218 more during the 2023–2027 term of office. SeTDIBA provides services in three areas: 1) implementing work models for public authorities, 2) providing support services for local authorities and citizens and 3) providing digital management technology. In terms of common work models, SeTDIBA implements the eSET model for administrative management, which is based on full digitalisation of administrative procedures, transparency in public management and sharing work.
One of the fundamental features of SeTDIBA is its continual adaptation to local government needs. In this sense, assessment is based on four areas: a) direct assessment of local authorities regarding the services provided; b) compilation and regular analysis of territorial needs; c) analysis of local authorities’ digital management data; and d) external assessment of digital management and transparency by control bodies.
The size and diversity of the province of Barcelona means the SeTDIBA project requires a particular governance ecosystem involving both internal (from different areas of the Provincial Council) and external stakeholders to securely and efficiently roll out the services in every corner of the province while avoiding duplication. For the inter-administration coordination, the Provincial Council, jointly with other supra-municipal authorities, has created the Xarxa de Suport al Govern Digital – XSGD (Digital Government Support Network,) as a permanent and stable instrument coordinating technical support to ensure no territory is left behind.
In this first stage (2018–2023), 55 per cent of local authorities with under 5 000 inhabitants were covered. Some 90 per cent of the local authorities addressed so far did not have digital management tools before the SeTDIBA project. In 2023, the SeTDIBA service offer has been extended to cover public sector authorities, and regional and local councils with up to 20 000 inhabitants, and is expected to cover between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of local authorities by the end of the 2023–2027 term of office.