COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION - TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL - IDA II Evaluation

(presented by the Commission)

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

The second phase of the IDA Programme (IDA II) was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in their Decisions No 1719/1999/EC [1] (hereinafter the Guidelines decision) and No 1720/1999/EC [2] (hereinafter the Interoperability decision) of 12 July 1999. Article 9 and 13 respectively of the two decisions require the Commission to submit a first evaluation of the IDA II Programme to the European Parliament and the Council no later than the draft budget for the year 2001, together with any appropriate proposal for the amendment of the Annex of the Guidelines decision and any appropriate proposal for the amendment of the Interoperability decision.

[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.

Due to the late entry into force of the IDA II Decisions (August 1999) and the consequent late adoption of the IDA 1999 Work programme (November 1999), the evaluation could only be initiated in January 2000 and was finalised in September 2000. Having taken place at the start of the IDA II Programme, the results of the evaluation represent, to a large extent, a baseline with which to compare the results of subsequent evaluations. As for the proposed amendments to the two decisions, they are based on the evaluation, as well as the first one-and-a-half year of experience in implementing the IDA II Programme and the context provided by the e-Europe initiative and related action plan. As a consequence, the Proposal to amend Decision No 1719/1999/EC also includes amendments to a number of articles of that Decision.

For both Proposals to amend Decision No 1719/1999/EC and Decision No 1720/1999/EC, three types of amendments can be distinguished: the first type stems from changes in legal and political obligations and concerns an adaptation of the committee procedure in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28.6.1999 [3] and extension of the IDA II programme to Malta and Turkey, as well as providing the possibility for candidate countries and non-member countries to use, at their own costs and under certain conditions, IDA generic services.

[3] OJ L 184, 17.7.1999, p. 23.

The second type of amendment serves to improve some practical conditions and is related to the implementation clause, the introduction of a financial reference for the period 2002-2004 and as far as the Proposal to amend Decision No 1720/1999/EC is concerned, also to the spread of best practice. Regarding the financial reference it has to be reminded that in Article 12 of Decision No 1719/1999/EC and Article 15 of Decision No 1720/1999/EC currently in force a financial framework is set only for the period 1998-2000.

And the third type is based on the requirements resulting from new initiatives, notably the e-Europe action plan (in particular the chapter on Government online), and as far as the Proposal to amend Decision No 1719/1999/EC is concerned, also the need to extend the areas where new telematic networks can be established, in particular to include networks in the field of education and judicial affairs.

The European Parliament and the Council are requested to adopt the Proposals for European Parliament and Council Decisions amending Decision No 1719/1999/EC and Decision No 1720/1999/EC.

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL - IDA II Evaluation - Decision No 1719/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 1999 and Decision No 1720/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 1999

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. The first phase of the IDA Programme (Interchange of Data between Administrations) was launched in 1995 through Council Decision 95/468/EC. The aim of the programme was to promote the electronic exchange of information between administrations, in order to support the functioning of the internal market and the implementation of a wide range of Community decisions [4]. This first phase established a number of important networks in areas such as employment, health, agriculture, fisheries, statistics and competition.

[4] The main objective of the IDA programme is to support the EU-level business of administrations, notably the implementation of Community policies, inter-institutional communication and Community decision-making process. IDA therefore serves the Community, with the administrations as the users of its networks and systems and the citizens and businesses of the EU as the ultimate beneficiaries.

1.2. The second phase of the IDA Programme (IDA II) was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in their Decisions No 1719/1999/EC [5] (hereinafter the Guidelines decision, providing the legal basis for Projects of Common Interests - PCIs - hereinafter referred to as sectoral networks) and No 1720/1999/EC [6] (hereinafter the Interoperability decision, providing the legal basis for Horizontal Actions and Measures - HAMs) of 12 July 1999.

[5] 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.

[6] 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.

1.3. Article 9 and 13 respectively of the two decisions require the Commission to submit an evaluation of the IDA II Programme to the European Parliament and the Council, no later than the draft budgets for the year 2001, 2003 and 2005 respectively, together with any appropriate proposal for the amendment of the annex of the Guidelines decision and any appropriate proposal for the amendment of the Interoperability decision.

1.4. Due to the late entry into force of the IDA II Decisions and the consequent late adoption of the 1999 IDA work programme (November 1999), the evaluation could only be initiated in January 2000. The evaluation was performed by the Commission with the assistance of a team of independent experts, coming from a consortium of two consultancy companies (Anite and White Waghorn).

1.5. On the basis of the work performed by the consultants [7], the Commission finalised the results of the evaluation and, at the meeting of 28.9.2000, presented them for examination to the Telematics between Administrations Committee (TAC), in accordance with the provisions of Article 9(3) of Decision No 1719/1999/EC and Article 13(3) of Decision No 1720/1999/EC.

[7] The final report of the consultants is available on the IDA web site http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida, however, in view of the early stage, it does not outline progress achieved or benefits delivered under IDA II.

1.6. The evaluation is based on a short period of experience in implementing the IDA II programme and serves as a baseline for the future evaluations. The results of the IDA II evaluation are presented in this Communication. In parallel, the Commission proposes amendments to the Guidelines and the Interoperability Decisions, taking into account the results of the evaluation and the experience gathered during the first one-and-a-half year of implementing IDA II, as well as the context provided by the e-Europe initiative and related action plan.

2. GENERAL COMMENTS

2.1. The general comments made here are based on the observations, conclusions and recommendations presented in the final report of the independent experts, which in return are based on investigations made and inputs received from several Member State administrations and Commission services (the observations, conclusions and recommendations were discussed between the experts, the Commission and the TAC at a number of ad hoc meetings).

2.2. The evaluation acknowledges the key role of the IDA programme in support of the Community and, within IDA, the key role of Horizontal Actions and Measures (HAMs) to ensure that the development of Projects of Common Interests (PCIs) is faster, more cost-effective and compatible.

2.3. The PCIs (whether funded by IDA or not) must be seen as the HAMs' principal customers. Special effort must be applied by the Commission service managing the IDA programme (with the support of the TAC) to understanding the common requirements of the PCIs and acquiring and/or developing suitable horizontal tools and services. The other services and sectoral committees should accept active guidance and co-ordination from the IDA programme management and also to contribute actively to the programme. This applies in principle to both IDA networks and Other (non-IDA funded) Sectoral Networks (OSNs). There are indications that this is already happening, but the trend needs to be actively encouraged if it is to become truly embedded into IDA II.

2.4. Regarding citizens and businesses, IDA II should:

- Ensure and verify that citizens and industry benefit from IDA networks;

- Encourage the introduction of citizens and industry as users wherever possible.

In the context of e-Europe, and taking into account the subsidiarity principle, IDA should promote direct access to government's information and contribute to a reduction of the administrative burden, at both national and EU level. Consideration should be given to how IDA will establish and maintain appropriate consultation links with business and citizens, e.g. through industry associations.

2.5. There is much competent, conscientious technical project management being conducted within the IDA community. The total pool of knowledge and expertise is impressive, and the opportunities that IDA can bring for cross-fertilisation in this respect are among its great strengths. Effective technical project managers have established a good understanding of the business, good links to the user community and high-level user management commitment. This approach is underpinned by the IDA Decisions and by the Global Implementation Plans (GIPs), but IDA can actively advise on how to make it happen. It can also facilitate and further encourage the necessary "people networking", perhaps by arranging specific topic-based ad hoc meetings, to complement the useful experience of routine meetings such as the TESTA User Group.

2.6. On the national co-ordination within the Member States, the Commission takes the view that the role of the Telematics between Administrations Committee (TAC) is crucial. Some TAC members are less well connected to all sectors in their country. Effective programme management requires that this "people network" in each country be strengthened where possible. The EC cannot insist on this point, given the principle of subsidiarity. However, it can facilitate it by making up-to-date lists of sectoral representatives available. Indeed, the IDA Unit, in the context of this evaluation, took a first step in this direction by collecting lists from sectoral project managers and passing them to the TAC. Such collection and dissemination should be conducted routinely in future.

2.7. In the short term, the availability of a catalogue of IDA generic services is an excellent step, which is urgently required. This should not, however, be a legacy catalogue, as IDA must look for new common services, applications, tools and techniques by:

- Reviewing what the existing IDA projects and OSNs have done;

- Reviewing market, national and other EC programme developments in a more systematic way;

- Assessing unsatisfied demand from the projects.

The catalogue should be regularly reviewed, not just to introduce new items based on identified requirements, but also to remove items no longer needed due to national or market developments.

2.8. In its total lifetime of up to 7 years, starting with the conception of IDA I during 1993 and 1994, IDA has experienced two prolonged periods without a legal basis, which has caused budgetary, management and planning uncertainty felt to a greater or lesser extent by all of the stakeholders. In addition to offering a sound basis for a re-oriented programme, the new Decisions should herald a period of greater stability and predictability. In this context, a defined financial framework for the rest of the programme would assist planning, as would the ability to determine budget allocation for larger projects over more than one year.

2.9. It is recommended that IDA continues to do everything possible to reduce the size and complexity of procedures and documents, within the constraints imposed by the IDA Decisions and official Community procedures. Some elements are likely to be immutable, but other aspects are more under IDA's control. The procedures should not only be streamlined in order to reduce administrative overhead, but also to provide for a more open allocation of funds to sectors. IDA should consider formalising the process by which sectors compete for IDA funding. At the same time, reporting should be improved by a more regular collection of basic information, notably on the status of projects and actions.

2.10. Committing funds should be seen much more strongly as just one (significant but early) milestone in a project, rather than in some sense the endpoint. For example, projects should report on achievements in relation to the expenditure that applies to the reporting period, and they should not disappear from the work programme because they are not seeking commitments in a particular year, when work is still proceeding based on previous years' commitments.

2.11. Through the Decisions and the Global Implementation Plans, IDA has already encouraged sectoral project managers to extend their horizon to the operational phase that follows implementation. In principle, IDA funding is not available for this phase (although it can exceptionally be granted for a limited initial period). The implications of this need to be worked through, to make sure that further new projects - and 14 new ones have already emerged in IDA II - can be funded, while existing projects are not starved of much-needed resources.

2.12. Further work should be done to improve the synergy with other Community initiatives, in particular Research & Development, Telecom Trans-European Networks (TEN) and Other Sectoral Networks (OSN), including projects undertaken by the Council and the European Parliament. It has been commented in the past that the different approaches to funding and procurement present an obstacle as far as the R&D sphere is concerned, but this does not need to prevent stronger links. Initial meetings with DG Information Society (in relation to R&D for administrations, TEN-Telecom and e-Europe) have already taken place. The co-ordination measures should be routinely reported, not just verified by programme evaluation every two years, and should cover all relevant EU actions.

2.13. In this connection, it has also been much commented that work is proceeding on networks for other institutions, notably the Council and Parliament. Strong co-ordination here is highly desirable and, as with "Other Sectoral Networks", requires both effective persuasion and marketing by IDA - the IDA Unit and the Commission Secretariat General have already been collaborating to this end - and a willingness on the part of the other institutions to be active participants in IDA. Under the Swedish Presidency of the Council, first but constructive attempts have been made to this end.

2.14. The Commission wishes to underline here that as a point of principle for the future evaluations, each IDA project should be encouraged to conduct periodic reviews or surveys of user satisfaction and that the results should be collated into a programme summary.

3. SPECIFIC FINDINGS

3.1. It is recommended that further work should be done to improve the communication within the IDA community by providing the sectors with user's guides to the Decisions, for the benefit of decision-makers and programme and project management, as well as through the spread of best practice and by means of people networking.

3.2. Regarding the issue of viewing the sectors as customers, greater effort should be put in understanding the common requirements of PCIs and by regularly reviewing the IDA catalogue of services, drawn up in the context of the HAMs. In particular, the role and nature of the GIP for the rest of the programme should be reviewed in the light of the experience and feedback of producing the first set. Getting the "people networks" identified and established and making sure obligations are clear from the start, are critical success factors for IDA projects.

3.3. In the context of constructing the five-year HAM work programme required by the Interoperability Decision, it is recommended to completely review the HAM objectives and the actions taken to achieve them. In this context, the definition should be addressed of "common rules and procedures for bringing about technical and administrative interoperability", as mentioned in the Decision.

3.4. There should be a continuously maintained register (matrix) of the HAM outputs and the projects that use them, incorporating contact details for the IDA and sectoral project managers. Following on the TESTA success with telecommunications services, the significant area of group working applications needs to be co-ordinated and focused, with delivery to sectoral customers firmly in mind. The "spread of best practice" activity could help in this respect.

3.5. The evaluators recommend that the programme actively monitors IDA PCIs and OSNs, through having a nominated "shadow manager" taking a high-level, but nonetheless technical, interest in developments and acting as the main contact point between the service managing the IDA programme and the project, such that IDA's HAM offerings can be designed in relation to practical sectoral needs and can be effectively promoted. This would be a boosted and extended role for the existing "Associated Manager". Sustained effort needs to be applied to actively involving the OSNs in IDA. The OSN inventory and the contact network should be used and maintained.

3.6. Furthermore, it is recommended that IDA II should monitor, report on and evaluate any previously funded but still ongoing projects, unless they are clearly outside the logical scope of the programme. The level of influence that IDA II can exert on actions initiated before it started is limited. However, it is still possible to assess them against programme objectives and priorities whose definition came later, while acknowledging that some may not conform to the extent that IDA II actions could be expected to.

3.7. As far as monitoring and reporting are concerned, the following is recommended:

- A periodic report on all projects, synchronised with the yearly work programme and budget activities (and focusing on expenditure and achievements). Note that an annual programme report is in any case a requirement of the Guidelines Decision. A Programme Support Office (PSO) could be established to help with such actions, offering specific practical support to the IDA Associated Manager (or "shadow manager") and the sectoral project manager;

- A yearly report on the uptake of the outputs of horizontal actions and measures by all sectoral projects (covering both IDA and other sectoral networks).

It is recommended that IDA II annual reports and biennial evaluations, required in the Decisions, consider presenting expenditure per project, as well as commitment, in order to make it easier to match the outputs to the money employed in their achievement. This would be more in line with private-sector project accounting principles.

3.8. The identification of measurable objectives, and the consequent "instrumentation" of the projects, should be pursued with greater vigour, having been started already in some GIPs and some work on analysis of costs and benefits (cf. TESS, EUDRA and EUPHIN projects). This is an area where the Commission service managing the IDA programme should continue to offer active assistance. It is especially important that the business case for the technical developments be identified and followed up.

3.9. The Commission service managing the IDA programme should consider formalising the process by which sectors compete for IDA funding. This service would issue an internal call and each sector would submit its proposal, explaining the objective and how HAM services and tools would be used to help achieve it. Evaluation criteria could include specific mention of the objectives and priorities of the programme, including for example the delivery of benefits to citizens and businesses.

3.10. In general, delegation of budget to the sectoral Directorates-General brings contract management and technical management closer together, which is beneficial, and allows the Commission service managing the IDA programme to focus its resources on co-ordination aspects such as: understanding sectoral needs, understanding better the needs and views of Member State administrations (and also citizens and businesses), and designing and implementing the actions that will help promote interoperability and the spread of good practices. But this service must make sure that it does not do this from an ivory tower. It is recommended in particular that it:

- Actively monitors IDA PCIs and OSNs;

- Actively monitors developments in each country;

- Organises TAC sub-group meetings in Member States as often as possible;

- Considers organising an IDA II review meeting/conference.

4. CONCLUSIONS

4.1. The Commission considers the evaluation results a useful assessment of the IDA II Programme as a whole and the projects and actions launched under it. These results are based on the conclusions and recommendations of the final evaluation report and serve as a baseline for future evaluations.

4.2. In parallel with the evaluation and immediately after, steps have already been taken: A catalogue of IDA generic services and a user's guide have been drawn up, a call for contributions to the IDA WP has been launched and, in the context of e-Europe, a portal for the EU administrations is being developed and a benchmarking action in the field of electronic delivery of public services with trans-border aspects is being undertaken.

4.3. As far as the recommendation to monitor IDA PCIs and OSNs is concerned (ref. 3.5), the following twofold approach has been taken:

- Involvement in the preparations of the GIPs has resulted in a better understanding of sectoral requirements;

- Dissemination of the catalogue of IDA generic services is leading to a higher take-up by the sectors of the IDA services available.

At the same time, a standard for PCIs and HAMs to report is being defined and will be attached to the revision of the Work Programme 2001. This reporting supports the projects in getting additional funding and serves as a basis for the next evaluation. Furthermore, co-ordination with the Council has started, as well as co-ordination with other EC programmes, notably R&D and TEN Telecom.

4.4. Based on the evaluation and the experience gathered during the first one-and-a-half year of the IDA II programme, as well as the context provided by the e-Europe initiative, the Commission has prepared amendments to European Parliament and Council Decision No 1719/1999/EC and Decision No 1720/1999/EC.