The tightening of the lockdown measures in Bavaria was overdue! However, one of Söders 10 measures points to where the core problem of the exponential growth in infection lay: in the lack of software at the health authorities. This was announced and the problem was already known in May. And it shows: we have a huge problem with the digitization of public institutions. This not only harms us economically, but also endangers trust in our democracy. Why do so many public IT projects fail? What can we do?
What Asia is doing better
As soon as the first wave of the coronavirus began to subside, our talk shows were full of experts on Asia who pointed out the strategies being adopted by Asian countries, including democratic ones. In addition to a mask-wearing culture based on respect for the health of others, driven by the experiences of SARS I 17 years ago, it was above all consistent lockdowns and travel restrictions, as well as widespread testing in risk areas to detect infection clusters. What is often forgotten in our country is that all these measures involved the consistent use of digital technology to identify infection clusters, trace chains of infection, monitor quarantine measures and inform the public. The much greater prevalence of digital technology in public administration, schools and businesses also makes it easier to maintain public life during lockdown or quarantine. Almost all Asian countries have been able to push the infection numbers below a critical level with similar strategies and have almost returned to normal for months.
What has our corona strategy looked like so far?
It essentially consisted of restricting mass events, the AHA recommendations and the greatest possible regional and municipal responsibility for implementing protective measures in public institutions, schools, universities, nursing homes, etc. But the core of our anti-corona strategy was: the individual tracking by the health departments. As early as May, heads of municipal health departments sounded the alarm: they can only really track up to a maximum of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants individually. If there were more, they would need software. This software existed – some non-European countries even bought it in Germany and it has been in use for months. In our health departments, positive tests have been piling up for months – despite support from the military. The exponential increase in numbers in October has a lot to do with the fact that the health departments can hardly implement individual tracking anymore and can only ask infected people to identify and inform their contacts themselves. And cases between municipalities are still often communicated by fax.
So why can’t we?
A central pillar of our corona strategy in Germany has broken away because municipal software could not be used! Why haven’t we rolled it out nationwide in all municipalities by late summer at the latest? We could also ask the same question in other directions: why was there no consistent hygiene concept for schools? Why is every school looking for its own digital teaching concept? My work gives me a little insight into municipal work and local digitization projects. And I live in Munich. When he took office, Markus Söder introduced digitization laws for Bavarian municipalities. So he recognized the need. If you look at the results after two years, you may ask a few critical questions about what has really happened since then. Many larger municipalities have launched digitization initiatives. However, the reality in many municipal administrations looks quite different. I will spare you the old painful comparison with the Baltic countries or the Netherlands, which have been fully digitizing their municipal work for years – it’s too frustrating. I know of large municipal administrations where a messenger comes every morning with a file trolley because there is no digital file storage in this area. Or municipal administrations in which neither notebooks nor sufficient WLAN are available. And we are not talking about the administration of highly secure, sensitive citizen data. Departments of neighboring units that work for each other, sit in the same buildings but do not have a shared database and send files back and forth via internal mail.
Or: My son was in a so-called ‚laptop class‘ at a state-run Bavarian grammar school twelve years ago. At that time (2008), students and teachers could not communicate with each other because the teachers did not have official email addresses. In May of this year (2020), I learned that there are still no official email addresses for Munich grammar school teachers, but that a concept for this has been in development for several years. Now – after 30 years – that many companies are starting to get rid of email as a communication tool, are schools starting to do so? I know municipal employees who send official emails to their private email addresses in order to process them with private, but common Microsoft programs in their free time. This is so that they can communicate with non-municipal institutions – which simply use MS Excel or Word. Why is this the case? Because the city of Munich, for example, has prevented the introduction of standard products from the aforementioned company for decades. Only now is this changing. If my building application takes 3-6 months to process because of non-digitalized processes, it’s annoying but manageable. But when municipal digital failure costs human lives, as it is doing now, then a few critical questions are in order.
Digital state failure has causes
What are the reasons for this failure? Why is it that we have a digital minister in Bavaria (Judith Gerlach), or are presented with sophisticated digital strategies from cities like Munich, but at the same time – when it really comes down to acting quickly in the digital world – we fail completely?
1. Bureaucracy: Larger municipal administrations are pronounced bureaucracies. With all the cultural consequences known since Max Weber: formation of departmental aristocracies, prevention of overarching and consistent processes, rather evolutionary development, a lot of preoccupation with oneself and a narrow view of one’s own mission – instead of the actual needs of the customer/citizen. In an election year, the most important thing is to avoid making mistakes that could jeopardize the re-election of their political superiors. However, technology projects in particular often affect several departments (of different parties) and almost always have disruptive potential for processes and workflows. As in industry, bureaucracies are initially natural opponents of digitization.
2. Resources and budget policy: Many public administrations have been starved of funds and are operating at the limit of their capabilities. There is no time to sharpen the saw and more and more municipal tasks are being added, while budgets remain the same at best. This would force companies to consistently increase productivity through innovation. This hardly happens in the public sector. At the same time, budget logic is completely hostile to innovation: if you save in one year and do not use up your budget, it will be cut the next year. There are exceptions to this, but this procedure characterizes the opposite of a culture of innovation.
3. Understanding of performance: willingness to take risks, error culture: the inherent performance logic of public institutions is still characterized by a culture of (outdated) civil service. The legislator determines the mandate and the administration implements it in task descriptions. It is not innovative ‚questioning‘ and ‚exceeding‘ expectations that is in demand, but their exact fulfillment. Then you will also be promoted every 2 years. Taking risks with the potential for error could prevent promotion at the highest level.
4. Co-determination: Staff councils in the public sector are usually not active drivers of innovation here. But they can become so. Works councils in companies are often forward thinkers, but at least they are open to technical changes in order to protect jobs and employees in the long term. This is because they are usually most familiar with the competitive situation themselves. In addition, a highly formalized staffing policy, with the help of the staff councils, prevents rapid and, above all, disruptive staffing. This is because candidates who do not meet all the qualifications of the formal criteria for the position have no chance. However, this is common and useful in innovative fields such as IT, because diverse profiles bring with them equally diverse ways of thinking. Otherwise, an organization’s competencies and culture will always reproduce themselves.
5. Lack of a culture of consistency: All public employees know not only particularly capable and motivated colleagues, but also underperformers who consistently and successfully avoid any motivation and discipline measures for years. This has a negative impact on the behavior of other employees. Public clients are often fundamentally unwilling to take labor law action because they see themselves as having a social obligation. This may be justified, but too little attention is paid to the effects on team dynamics. There are other ways.
6. Leadership: Managers in public service are usually underpaid compared to industry. Classic ‚innovators‘, who sometimes question and break taboos and conventions, do not survive long in public companies. Staff development in leadership roles takes place internally and tends to produce polished characters. This has many advantages – but is a hindrance in the area of digital innovation, which often takes rule-breaking quantum leaps. There should be much more exchange with the outside world. Ambitious high performers who want to make a difference often avoid public service – in contrast to those who need security. In addition, the relationship between department heads and their changing political superiors is often complex. The latter are often not experts in the field, change after election periods, and in election years, often nothing gets done. Comprehensive multi-year transformations or cross-departmental changes are also tricky for political department heads.
7. Committees: In the public sector, many decisions that are cross-departmental and cross-organizational or cross-process are shaped by committees. These are either also politically appointed or otherwise based on parity. I am a big proponent of agile forms of work and diverse teams. However, the decision-making structure of traditional committees is in a completely different context than that of truly agile teams. In committees, the opposite of agility often occurs. Committees with representatives as ‚emissaries‘ of their organization tend to compromise rather than make innovative quantum leaps. Even if it looks ‚agile‘ from the outside.
8. Compliance in the purchase of external services: I know many companies (including mine) that are skeptical when it comes to bidding for public contracts. Tenders are often much too narrow in content to really allow for innovation, and the selection process is sometimes bureaucratic and costly. In addition, innovation projects need freedom to experiment and openness with regard to solutions. This is difficult in a rigid tendering regime. Furthermore, the public sector pays poorly. Close, innovation-driven and long-term cooperation with suppliers at eye level – as is often the case in the automotive industry and its suppliers, for example – is the actual reason for innovations in the public sector, is the exception and hardly possible.
9. Data protection: Data protection, like co-determination and democratic elections, is a valuable asset. However, data protection is complex to implement and is often used simply as an excuse and a killer argument to prevent digital innovation from even being considered.
A challenge for federal democracy in particular
We will face further existential threats after the coronavirus pandemic – whether from climate change, international crises, terrorism or further pandemics. If we fail to instill confidence in the effectiveness of our democratic administrations and their ability to protect the population, then our democratic institutions will be held responsible for this. Are authoritarian governments simply better at protecting their citizens because they can rule more consistently in an emergency? Do data protection, co-determination, compliance and an administrative management culture prevent us from making quick and effective decisions at all levels of our local government and from quickly implementing measures in the event of a crisis?
The AFD is still cavorting in the supposedly freedom-loving, liberal corner and has not yet recognized its opportunity in law and order politics.
We must therefore be able to act quickly and effectively in emergency situations despite federal structures and the rule of law and democratic structures. Local self-government cannot be more important than human life!
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Government technology policy must be recognized as a key factor in shaping the future. What are the key technologies for our community? Where is a particular technology vital in a crisis across state and departmental borders? Where do innovations languish for years because bureaucratic mechanisms block them? Where do we have to temporarily override municipal autonomy or state interests? Technology policy must also be understood as security, economic and social policy.
2. Define focus projects. It must be recognized which technologies are the basis for services from the state to citizens. Where could barriers lie in the organization of public services and how can they be solved preventively? How do you provide these projects with sufficient resources and budgets? How do you find the right external partners who can really advance them? How can you staff the projects so diversely and manage them so agilely that new perspectives are effective but no political representatives of departmental rivalries have power there? Data protection officers and staff councils should be involved in such key projects from the outset. Milestones and their metrics for implementation must be clear from the outset, and early indicators are needed if a project runs out of time.
3. Breaking down barriers requires leadership. Key projects must be a matter for the boss. IT functions in particular must be carefully staffed and equipped. In industry, IT managers are often replaced or rotated after a few years because it is difficult for them to keep up with the rapid developments in all innovative IT fields. How do you recognize when technology projects are getting stuck? When committees or competing departments block each other? Is it possible to outsource certain projects and transfer temporary project companies to private-law company forms that are not bound by all the personnel law requirements of the public sector? Or can you not outsource right away? That’s what they do with large construction projects. Innovation projects should also be managed in an agile or hybrid way and need leeway and encouragement to think divergently and find unusual solutions. Many supposedly agile projects in the public sector only pretend to be agile. And when a stable solution is found, the project management style should quickly change to a tightly goal-oriented implementation.
Public trust in our federal democracy and its ability to manage crises quickly and effectively and to protect citizens will thank us for it!
