The Initiative - Citizens

The Austrian government stated its objective to reduce admin burdens for citizens in its current governmental programme. In April 2009 the council of ministers decided on a comprehensive programme to reduce admin burden for citizens and improve the quality of governmental services.

The programme is a joint project of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Chancellery and consists of two elements: the use of the Standard Cost Model (SCM) for the 100 most burdensome information obligations and fast track measures for priority areas such as birth, marriage and death.

Aims

Cutting time and costs spent on information obligations:

• reducing official channels by fostering the use of e-government solutions
• enhancing intra-governmental cooperation
• providing one-stop-shop solutions

Improve service quality:

• making questionnaires and forms more comprehensible and easier to access,
• providing information in a barrier-free way at a central point of interest
• developing interactive procedures