[pic] | COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES |

Brussels, 14.10.2005

COM(2005) 493 final

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Report on the Evaluation of the IDA II programme

1. INTRODUCTION

The IDA (Interchange of Data across Administrations) programme was started in 1995 as a result of a Community Decision that helped set up IT infrastructure, establish common formats and integrate business processes across the EU. In 1999, two interrelated Community Decisions signalled the start of a second phase of the IDA programme, referred to as IDA II. The purpose of the programme, which was managed by the Directorate-General for Enterprise, was to support rapid electronic exchange of information between Member State administrations. Its mission was to coordinate the establishment of trans-European telematic networks for the public administrations in the participating countries.

With an annual budget of about € 24 million, IDA II set about encouraging the application of information technologies to sectoral policy areas and promoting the interoperability of national infrastructure. Initially pursuing a predominantly back-office focus, towards the end of its lifespan in 2004 the programme began to concentrate on the development of services aimed at businesses and citizens.

The end-term evaluation of the programme, which was required under its legal basis, was largely positive about the achievements of the programme in terms of its relevance and its ability to deliver efficiently. However, it also highlighted a number of shortcomings that it recommended for consideration in the IDABC programme that followed on from IDA II on 1 January 2005.

The purpose of this document is to report on the findings of the end-term evaluation of the IDA II programme to the European Parliament and the Council and to give an indication of how these have been taken on board by IDABC.

2. BACKGROUND

The second phase of the IDA Programme (IDA II) entered into force following adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of Decisions Nos 1719/1999/EC[1] and 1720/1999/EC[2] (hereinafter referred to as "the Guidelines and Interoperability Decisions") on 12 July 1999.

Recognising the need for European administrations to take best advantage of the new technological opportunities, IDA II was redirected towards ensuring interoperability. IDA II's rationale now was not only to maximise flexibility and minimise the costs of information exchange but also to increase efficiency in the provision of online services by public administrations to citizens and enterprises, in particular at pan-European level.

Midway through the programme, the IDA II Decisions were amended by Decisions Nos 2046/2002/EC[3] and 2045/2002/EC[4], respectively, of the European Parliament and the Council in order to take on board recommendations from the mid-term evaluation of the programme. The changes included references to the conclusions and recommendations from two high-level events that took place in 2001, namely, the Ministerial Conference on e-Government - jointly organised by the Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the Council, and the IDA-Swedish Presidency Conference "e-Government in the service of European citizens and enterprises" in Sandhamn, Sweden. They included references to the identification and deployment of pan-European eGovernment services to citizens and enterprises.

The need to carry out a final evaluation of the IDA II programme stems from Articles 9 and 13 respectively of the two decisions that established it. These also require the European Commission to submit a report on the evaluation to the European Parliament and the Council. Consequently, the Commission initiated the IDA II end-term evaluation in December 2003 and concluded it in November 2004.

The evaluation was performed by the Commission with the assistance of a team of independent experts from a consultancy company. Representatives of various IDA stakeholder groups and the Member States participated in the evaluation’s project management board meetings and provided their contributions to the methodology and conclusions.

The full report of this work is available online at http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3536/5588.

3. REVIEW OF ACHIEVEMENTS

3.1. Project implementation

In the period 1999-2004, Europe's policy agenda broadened considerably, and this has also reflected on how the IDA II programme has developed. Examples of broader political trends impacting on IDA-financed activities include measures to improve veterinary control and health through information systems in the wake of the BSE scandals, and maritime and civil protection in the aftermath of natural and man-made catastrophes such as the sinking of the tankers Prestige and Erica in 1999 and 2002. These trends come on top of traditional European policy issues, such as employment and social security or transportation. Recent preoccupations with public security have given new impetus to information systems in that domain which, although not financed through IDA, in many instances made use of the programme’s horizontal measures.

In total, IDA II financed projects of common interest in nineteen different policy areas. For many of these detailed information was published on the IDA II website at http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/chapter/550. Among the more prominent information systems that received IDA II support are the job opportunity website EURES, the PLOTEUS portal on learning opportunities, the flood alert system LISFLOOD, the EUPHIN public health information network, the SOLVIT system for dispute resolution in the Internal Market, DSIS, a telematic application for the collection of statistics, SAFESEANET for maritime safety, and CARE, the road accident database. Although enlargement of the EU to embrace ten new Member States in 2004 did not lead to new information systems being established, a major effort was undertaken to extend existing projects to these countries.

In projects addressing the technical prerequisites of data exchange, so-called horizontal actions and measures, much of IDA II's effort went into creating the basic infrastructure for data exchange, with increasing emphasis being placed on the security of communications. Central to these initiatives has been the TESTA network for secure communications between European public administrations, a network that is also increasingly being used for bilateral or multilateral exchanges within the EU. At the end of the IDA II programme, all Member States had connected to TESTA and the network was close to receiving security accreditation. Other activities to build a European infrastructure for cross-border exchange were initiated both in the areas of transmission utilities, application hosting, messaging middleware and the provision of electronic certificates, and also at content-related levels, such as through encouraging the use of machine translation.

A second group of horizontal actions and measures contained a number of applications addressing specific public sector requirements, including CIRCA, a groupware application especially suited to the multilingual operating of committees and expert groups required in the implementation of European policies, the IPM tool for interactive policy-making or a portal toolkit that is particularly suited to the publication of information in multiple languages. Towards the end of the programme, the mobility portal, later renamed Your Europe portal, established itself as a consolidated delivery platform for information on the mobility requirements of citizens and businesses.

The third broad group of actions initiated by IDA II included guidelines and recommendations that reflected an increasing requirement for national IT infrastructures and strategies to develop capabilities for interoperability with their counterparts elsewhere in the EU or to be open and accessible to citizens and businesses. Central to these were the European Interoperability Framework and the Architecture Guidelines, which developed recommendations for more efficient and effective communication between public administrations. In addition, IDA II took an early interest in open source software and sought to encourage its uptake in the public sector where useful. Other guidelines, including on model requirements for the management of electronic records (MoReq) and managing information resources for eGovernment (MIReG) or the recommendations on open document formats, addressed the interaction between the public sector and wider society. The important work carried out by IDA II to promote a consistent European approach to electronic procurement should also be cited. Information on these and other horizontal actions or measures can be found online at http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/chapter/556.

3.2. Coordination of European public sector IT policies

While IDA II was very much a project-oriented programme, the mechanism of coordination between Community and national stakeholders took on an importance in its own right. At the centre of this coordination was the management committee and its technical working group and a host of expert groups on subjects ranging from videoconferencing, data networks, information security, interoperability of IT systems, open source software, middleware and directory service technologies, metadata agreements, eProcurement and portal content, to name but a few. In 2004 alone, 30 such expert meetings were held, contributing to the emergence of a common vision on how to implement eGovernment IT systems.

3.3. Statistical data

Over the duration of the programme, a total of 107 projects received some degree of financing from IDA II. Of these, 62 were projects of common interest, i.e. addressing legislative requirements in specific policy areas.

Health and the agricultural sector accounted for the largest number of projects of common interest (PCIs), although the agricultural sector did not rank top in budgetary terms, the biggest recipients being the health and environmental sectors and projects initiated by the European Agencies.

A breakdown of financing by policy area is presented in the table below.

Sector | % of IDA PCI funding | Number of projects |

Agriculture | 4.9% | 9 |

Competition | 0.2% | 1 |

Education | 1.7% | 2 |

Employment | 1.3% | 2 |

Enterprise | 3.1% | 1 |

Environment | 13.7% | 5 |

Internal Market | 1.3% | 5 |

Fisheries | 2.3% | 1 |

Health | 21.9% | 11 |

Humanitarian Aid | 0.5% | 2 |

Justice & Home Affairs | 0.9% | 3 |

Regional Policy | 0.9% | 1 |

Statistics | 10.9% | 5 |

Translation Services | 2.2% | 1 |

Transport + Energy | 1.5% | 5 |

European Agencies | 20.0% | 4 |

Inter-Institutional Affairs | 12.2% | 1 |

Technical Regulations | 0.5% | 1 |

Trade | 0.0% | 1 |

Not considered in this table are IT systems that – although not receiving any direct financial support – benefited from IDA II through the usage of infrastructures and solutions provided by the programme. Examples of these were Eurodac for the management of asylum requests, the civil protection system Prociv-Net and FIU-Net for combating financial fraud.

As regards horizontal actions and measures (HAMs), the programme adopted a classification system that distinguished between technology solutions, business and organisational solutions, the spread of good practice and finally programme management. The most elaborate of these domains was technology solutions, which consequently also included the biggest number of projects and accounted for the highest budgetary allocations of HAM categories.

A breakdown of financing by category is presented in the table below.

HAM category | % of IDA HAM funding | Number of projects |

Technology solutions | 69.91% | 25 |

Business/organisation solutions | 18.28% | 9 |

Spread of good practice | 7.73% | 4 |

Programme management | 4.38% | 7 |

3.4. Budgetary data

Budgetary appropriations (in € million) over the duration of the programme were as follows:

1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |

23.44 | 24.36 | 24.00 | 24.00 | 24.92 | 26.50 |

Actual commitments over the years were as follows (in € million, rounded to the nearest 10000):

1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |

21.31 | 20.15 | 19.85 | 19.68 | 17.33 | 22.55 |

Of the above commitments, about 52% went towards projects of common interest, while 48 % went towards horizontal actions and measures.

4. ASSESSMENT OF IMPACT AND PERFORMANCE

In line with the Communication on Evaluation Standards and Good Practice,[5] the evaluation focused on the following five main issues:

1. Relevance

To what extent was the IDA II programme relevant to the needs, problems and issues faced by the targets of the programme?

2. Effectiveness

How effective was the IDA II programme in inducing effects and impacts that correspond with the objectives outlined in the Guidelines and Interoperability Decisions?

3. Efficiency

How efficiently were the resources and inputs of the IDA II programme converted into effects and impacts?

4. Utility

What utility did the target population derive from the impacts of the IDA II programme?

5. Sustainability

How sustainable were any positive changes resulting from the IDA II programme?

4.1. Relevance

The EU’s data interchange requirements cannot efficiently be met by uncoordinated actions from individual Member States. There was therefore a need to ensure overall coordination in order to achieve integration of the administrative systems across the EU.

While the work programme and the projects implementing it were the focus of the IDA II programme, the discussions preparing for adoption of the work programme and accompanying the implementation of specific actions were as important an aspect of the programme as the activities themselves. The programme organised close to forty expert group meetings a year on a wide range of subjects, ranging from networking policies to electronic procurement and open document formats to information security, and these forums played an important role in coordinating national IT policies and ensuring both an agreed approach and Member State participation/contribution (to the extent possible).

In addition to creating opportunities for national eGovernment experts to meet, discuss and decide policy, IDA II also provided valuable access to information on eGovernment practices in the EU and beyond through its dissemination activities, notably the eGovernment Observatory.

Throughout its duration, the IDA II programme extended its activities into new areas in order to meet and anticipate emerging needs and requirements within the target populations for the programme. Thus, the delivery of electronic services to businesses and citizens took on increasing importance. However, this change of direction was not adequately supported by the definition of strategic objectives, thereby weakening its potential contribution to the target population. Questions were also raised during the evaluation as to whether in the absence of a legal basis for activities in certain domains concerning citizens and businesses much national participation could be expected.

4.2. Efficiency

Based on the findings of the evaluation, the IDA II programme has made large gains in terms of its working methods and the delivery of its outputs over the preceding IDA programme. The evaluation noted that although it consumed a rather small budget, it delivered many concrete benefits.

This does not mean, however, that there is no scope for further efficiencies in parts of the programme. One particular issue that was cited is that information was not generally available to enable projects to be appropriately monitored by the programme’s management committee.

In terms of funding, the evaluation noted that resources might have been more tightly associated with the achievement of the programme’s priorities. In the IDA II programme, few attempts were made to allocate preferential financing to projects more closely aligned on the strategic objectives of the programme.

Finally, the programme would have benefited from closer involvement of industry in the technology choices it was confronted by. Thus, in the face of rapid change in the technologies relating to eGovernment, the evaluation noted that the IDA II programme risked taking inadequate technological decisions. However, concerns over transparency and non-discrimination of such consultations predominated.

4.3. Effectiveness

The effectiveness of a programme is measured against how it impacts on the target populations. However, the objectives as laid out in the Interoperability and Guidelines Decisions were broad objectives. An example of this is the objective of achieving interoperability across administrative sectors. These objectives were difficult to measure and track within the programme and the evaluation noted that they were unlikely to be fulfilled with the resources available. However, achieving interoperability is also a question of commitment at all levels of government.

As a result, the evaluation showed a broad range of opinions on the possible effect of the programme, ranging from very positive to somewhat more critical. The evaluation therefore focused on a proxy measure, namely, the adoption of horizontal actions and measures (HAMs), noting that this provided a mixed result since few of the HAMs saw widespread adoption in the projects of common interest (PCIs), let alone the rest of the EU.

However, on a positive note, the evaluation found that the IDA II programme received maximum attention in the Member States that joined the EU after enlargement in 2004. These countries often had no home-grown alternative to IDA II but did possess the political drive to engage and integrate with the EU. The opportunities for efficiency gains in the context of the new accession countries were very good indeed.

4.4. Utility

The evaluation notes that Europe’s performance in terms of interchange of data improved considerably over the duration of the IDA and IDA II programmes. Many sectors have networks that enable data sharing, a desired output of the IDA programmes. Not all of the advances can be identified as being delivered by IDA II, but then neither would it be possible for IDA alone to deliver the objectives set before it by the 1999 IDA II Decisions. What IDA has done is to initiate and facilitate the creation of an infrastructure that provides significant utility to target populations in the EU.

The objective that according to the evaluation seemed to have been furthest developed is the economically efficient interchange of information across the EU, while the provision of eGovernment services to citizens and enterprises is the least mature. This is not too surprising given the relatively short time that has elapsed since the 2002 amendments through which citizens and enterprises were included as beneficiaries of the IDA II programme.

The evaluation also indicated that IDA’s generic services are not widely prevalent even within the IDA’s funded projects. This lowers the utility that can be derived from the programme. Although the source code of certain solutions, such as the Portal toolkit and CIRCA, were made available to other administrations, most solutions created within one of the projects were not available on a re-use/open source basis to other projects.

4.5. Sustainability

Sustainability in the context of the IDA II programme is more than simply guaranteeing the sustainability of its individual projects: instead, it should be seen as delivering sustainable impacts for the target populations. This required keeping track of how well projects are meeting their design objectives and making sure that those design objectives were keeping pace with the changing needs of the target populations.

Experience shows that sustainable funding is more forthcoming if targets are regularly met. Therefore, it was important for the IDA programme as a whole to be focused on meeting the needs of the target populations. Relevance and sustainability are closely related.

The initial phase of the IDA II programme did not focus much attention on sustainability. However, in its last two years a significant effort was made to secure the sustainability of projects in the IDA II programme, even if a general solution could not ultimately be developed.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS

The evaluation of the IDA II programme resulted in a number of recommendations. While many of these could not be taken on board in the IDA II programme, they have in part found expression in the IDABC legal basis adopted in April 2004[6] to ensure a follow-on to IDA II. They are also guiding the implementation of the IDABC programme.

5.1. Need for a strategic framework

Perhaps the single most important recommendation from the evaluation was that the programme’s activities should be developed within a strategic framework that would

- start from a problem analysis of interoperability and interchange of data across Europe, keeping in mind the Lisbon Agenda and the needs of the eEurope Action Plan 2005;

- be based on a stakeholder analysis covering those involved and their motivation and commitment to participating;

- set about a strategic definition of goals and objectives to solve the problem;

- assess the impact of the different implementation opportunities;

- give priority to those activities that will contribute most to achieving the programme’s objectives and goals; and,

- finally, establish an implementation plan that translates the strategic goals and objectives into specific PCI and HAM activities.

While these recommendations came too late for IDA II, the foundations of a strategic framework are being put in place by the IDABC programme:

- The Commission carried out an extensive stakeholder survey in the lead-up to IDABC in order to identify priority cross-border eGovernment services for citizens and businesses. It also organised an open call for papers and sent out invitations to a conference early in 2005 in order to allow for further debate on the direction that the IDABC programme should take. As a result of these activities, seven priority areas for cross-border services were identified.

- The first full release of the European Interoperability Framework at the end of 2004 established the conceptual framework for the IDABC’s future activities in support of better electronic communications for the European public sector. The concepts of technical, semantic and organisational interoperability that this established have since become common language and have helped to pinpoint the areas of work that need to be addressed by Member States and by the Commission. Early in 2005, this document was complemented by a blueprint for the technical architecture for the delivery of cross-border eGovernment services.

5.2. Addressing the need for sustainability

The question of source of financing after project implementation was unresolved by IDA II and remains open for IDABC. The respective programmes exclude financing projects of common interest and under IDABC generally limit the financing to four years.

In the case of PCIs, the evaluation suggested that IDA should not approve funding without an appropriate financial guarantee from the respective DG or agency regarding ongoing post-implementation funding of the project. In the case of HAMs, it recommended a pre-agreed setting of objectives/goals/performance indicators for the project to be achieved within a specified period of time. Ongoing funding should be tied to achieving those milestones. Projects that are not meeting target needs should not receive ongoing funding.

However, these recommendations are unlikely to solve the issue of sustainability, as it is practically impossible to provide any assurances for future financing, and the success of a project will not create financing sources that are independent of the IDABC programme’s budget. The Commission will therefore assess the options for long-term financing and the management of strategic infrastructure components and present proposals for a solution.

5.3. Reusing technical solutions

The evaluation recommended that the reuse of technical solutions should be at or near the top of the IT efficiency agenda for the European Commission. It suggested that a clear process should be defined for which generic tools and services are required and how buy-in by the relevant stakeholders would be ensured. Solutions that are created in PCIs should also be made available on a generic open source basis, if applicable.

While reuse of generic components has been at the heart of the IDA II programme, reuse of solutions developed by PCIs has not in the past been an objective. To address the recommendation for more efficient usage of IDABC-financed IT developments, the Commission will take measures to improve coordination between the PCIs and their awareness of available solutions, whether these are horizontal measures or solutions developed by other sectoral projects. The definition of an overall strategic framework, too, will help steer projects towards the items that they can rely on IDABC to deliver.

6. CONCLUSIONS

While pinpointing a number of weaknesses in the programme, the end-term evaluation of IDA II has drawn largely positive conclusions on the programme’s performance over its five-year lifespan. For the most part, the improvements that it has suggested have been or are in the process of being implemented in the IDABC programme that followed on from IDA II on 1 January 2005. Most importantly perhaps, the evaluation reinforced a culture of programme management that seeks to establish measurable objectives and link individual activities to those objectives.

[1] Decision No 1719/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 1999 on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA), OJ L 203, 3.8.1999, p. 1.

[2] Decision No 1720/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 1999 adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA), OJ L 203, 3.8.1999, p. 9.

[3] Decision No 2046/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2002 amending Decision No 1719/1999/EC, OJ L316, 20.11.2002, p. 4

[4] Decision No 2045/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2002 amending Decision No 1720/1999/EC, OJ L316, 20.11.2002, p. 1

[5] C(2002)5267 - 23.12.2002

[6] Decision 2004/387/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on the interoperable delivery of pan-European eGovernment services to public administrations, business and citizens (IDABC), OJ L 181, 18.5.2004, p. 25