Digitalisation Without Impact: When Public Authorities Only Rebuild Old Processes Online

A digital form does not replace a rethink. Taking an overloaded process online simply produces an overloaded process online.

Few terms are cited as a solution in public authorities as often as digitalisation. A procedure takes too long, so digitalise it. A department is overloaded, so digitalise it. Citizens complain about long waiting times, so digitalise it. The term has become a kind of universal answer expected to solve almost any question of improvement. That is precisely the problem. Treating digitalisation as a goal in its own right confuses a tool with an outcome.

A digital filing cabinet is still a filing cabinet

Many digitalisation projects in public administration follow the same pattern. An existing process is transferred step by step into a digital system. The paper form becomes a PDF form, the handwritten signature becomes an electronic signature, the filing cabinet becomes a digital filing cabinet. What emerges is a technical copy of the original workflow, not its further development. The number of processing steps stays the same. The number of departments involved stays the same. The checks, forwardings and queries that originally slowed a case down remain in place too, just on a screen instead of on paper.

This explains why many digitalisation projects end up with a new system but no noticeable relief. Staff often report that their work has barely changed after new software was introduced, and sometimes has become more demanding, because on top of the substantive work they now also have to learn how to operate the new system. The structural overload that has accompanied many public authorities for years does not disappear through this kind of digitalisation. It merely shifts.

Mapping a process is not changing a process

The decisive difference lies between mapping a process and actually changing it. A mapping takes over the existing logic one to one and transfers it into a new medium. A change first asks whether that logic still makes sense at all. Does an application really need four approval stages because that is how it was decided historically, or do two suffice today? Does a piece of information really need to be captured by three different offices, or is a single shared data source enough?

These questions are skipped in many digitalisation projects because they are uncomfortable. They touch on responsibilities, established departmental structures and personal roles within a procedure. It is considerably easier to map an existing workflow technically than to question it on the merits. That is exactly what turns digitalisation without prior task review into an apparent solution. It creates the impression of progress without changing anything about the actual cause of the overload.

Why task review must come before technology

Public authorities that want to achieve noticeable relief have to reverse this order. The first question is which task is still required at all, and to what extent, and what contribution it makes to the actual fulfilment of the authority’s remit. Only afterwards comes the question of how a reduced, clearly defined process can best be supported technically. This order costs more time at first, because it requires an honest stocktake. It prevents, however, expensive software being introduced at the end that merely runs an unnecessary process faster.

This is exactly where Chapter 1 of my book Effiziente Verwaltung begins. It describes the structural overload of many public authorities as a permanent state, arising from growing workloads, tightening standards and rising expectations. The chapter makes clear that, for exactly this reason, isolated improvements and well-intentioned efficiency initiatives often fail to produce structural relief. Anyone who does not systematically question the causes of the overload develops solutions without lasting impact, which in the end even generate additional effort. Digitalisation that carries over existing workflows unchanged is a typical example of exactly this effect.

What senior managers should specifically check

For heads of administration, this means a clear review mandate before any digitalisation project is launched. It is worth first asking how often a process has actually been changed in recent years because requirements changed, or whether it has been running unquestioned for a long time. Equally important is the question of how many people and departments are involved in a case and whether each of these involvements is actually necessary on the merits. Only once these questions are answered does the choice of a digital system make sense at all, because only then is it clear which genuinely reduced process that system is meant to support.

The role of leadership in the digitalisation process

This review cannot be delegated to an IT department. Task review is a leadership decision, because it inevitably calls into question existing responsibilities and workflows that senior managers have upheld for years. Anyone who leaves this responsibility entirely to the departments that manage the process in question risks that, in the end, exactly the structure that should have been reviewed gets defended instead. Heads of administration therefore need to set the framework within which a digitalisation project is launched in the first place, and explicitly factor in the question of what can be dropped. Not every task performed today has to be performed to the same extent, or in the same way, in future.

A further point concerns the expectations placed on a digitalisation project itself. If it is communicated from the outset that a new system is mainly meant to reduce error rates or avoid media discontinuities, the impression quickly arises that the technical changeover alone is enough. If it is instead stated openly that the starting point is a reduction in steps and involvements, with the technology subsequently reflecting that reduction, staff expectations of the project change as well. They then experience not just a new tool, but genuinely changed, lighter workflows.

Digitalisation remains an important tool for public administration. Its impact only unfolds, however, once it meets a process that has already been thought through. Public authorities that keep to this order regain genuine capacity to act. Public authorities that skip it end up with a new system for an old problem.