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South African-European Union Dialogue Facility Series

of coordination among the central government, nine tasks out of public offices and into citizens’ everyday
(9) regions and ninety-eight (98) municipalities, and lives on their phones and computers in their homes
non-governmental stakeholders. – has profoundly changed the historical relationship
between the Government as a provider of public
Exploratory collaboration on public digitalisation services and beneficiaries by helping citizens to
strategies from 2001 had been instrumental in laying empower themselves via secure, cost-effective and
the groundwork for developing, funding and imple- flexible digital solutions.
menting solutions. A multi-stakeholder forum gover-
nance model of steering committees and the project Key challenges and dilemmas
has been instrumental in realising the objectives of Denmark has covered a lot of ground in its Digital
public digitalisation strategies in Denmark over the Transformation Journey. However, it would be remiss
past three decades and ultimately ensuring: not to acknowledge some key concerns, challenges,
and ethical and policy dilemmas along the way. As the
§ The establishment of a shared infrastructure lead institution, the Agency for Digitisation continues
(individual citizen IDs, login solutions, etc.); to be mindful of the unique challenges of large-scale
§ Shared data (basic data on individuals, digitalisation efforts. Concerns around the growing
buildings, infrastructure, and so on), made threat of cyber security, ethics, and transparency are
accessible through the Data Distribution uppermost in the minds of many Danes, and the need
Platform; and to maintain trust in the digital solutions of the public
§ Digital solutions of different public organi- sector is crucial. Moreover, there is a need to leverage
sations (e.g. health portal, citizen portal) are new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)
credited to Denmark’s solid governance ar- responsibly; creating a more coherent public sector
rangements. through increased data-sharing; and invest in digital
skills.

Digital-ready legislation The Danish digital transformation remains sharp and
Digital-ready legislation is a recently implemented bold. Its success, however, also depends on consid-
policy (the 2018 bill on digital-ready legislation) based ering and heeding some stakeholders from academia
on the recognition that complex legislation with sev- and the media. In particular, concerns have been
eral exceptions, vague terms or many procedural re- raised over the cost of IT projects, whether the digital
quirements may prevent an efficient and digital pub- solutions they propose are appropriate, and the pru-
lic administration. The idea is that legislation should dence of experimenting with immature technologies
build on simple rules and unambiguous terminology in the public sectors.
to allow for the extended use of automated case
processing across all types of public sector organi- Insights and lessons as a basis for dialogue
sations and policy areas. An example is pension al- There is much to learn from the dialogue between
location and payments, where the law is based on South Africa and Denmark on digital transforma-
objective criteria such as age, citizenship and coun- tion, especially in institutional arrangements, the
try of residence, and where data is available to the development of digital-ready policy, legislation, and
authorities, which reduces the need for applications, programme implementation. The strategic consider-
physical encounters, and professional discretion. ations include thinking and decisions around the fol-
lowing:
Ensuring digital-ready legislation is driven by policy
tools that provide guidelines for assessing whether a • Pushing the digitalisation agenda forward
bill is digital-ready. For example, a mandatory para- WHILE maintaining trust;
graph in the formal template ministries is used when • Leveraging the potentials of digitalisation
drafting new legislation to formalise the digital-ready WHILE being realistic about barriers; and
function in the Agency for Digitisation. • Legitimacy through being digitally advanced
VERSUS legitimacy through being prudent.
Digital inclusion
The expectations of the Danish citizenry have spurred
the movement toward digital self-service solutions. In
turn, the digital transformation of government services
rides on the back of a highly digital literate society,
with 7% of the population exempted from Digital
Post, for example, and therefore requiring traditional
modes of service delivery. The transformation-
moving large parts of the public administration’s

18 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 15 • No. 1 of 2022