Less burden for the Austrian economy
In 2006 the Austrian Government launched the initiative “Reducing administrative burden for businesses” in order to reduce administrative burdens induced on Austrian businesses. This will increase the attractiveness of Austria as a business location and create potential for future investments within the Austrian economy.
The results of the baseline measurement completed in June 2007 have shown that the Austrian economy faces administrative burdens amounting to 4.3 billion Euros. This equals 1.6 per cent of the GNP.
Agreement on reduction targets
In November 2007 the Austrian government set net reduction targets of 25 per cent for each ministry, in sum this amounts to a reduction of more than 1 billion Euros for Austrian businesses. The overall reduction will be achieved in two phases: Reductions for national induced burdens have to be achieved until 2010. Reductions for EU induced burdens have to be achieved until 2012.
Distribution of the administrative burden
70 per cent of the overall burden is caused by regulations in the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry for Economics and Labour. Planning measurement will be especially demanding for these three ministries. Please find more detailed information on the results here.
Support of the initiative
The initiative is supported by all Federal Ministries, social partners, stakeholders and many other private and public agencies. The cooperation with and support of Austrian businesses is crucial for its success. All entrepreneurs have been invited to support the initiative by filling in a feedback-form. So far, we received many useful hints and suggestions on priority areas, where administrative burden could be diminished.
Reduction of administrative burdens for businesses: launch of business service portal
On 1st January 2010, the Austrian Government launched a one-stop-shop business service portal called 'Unternehmensserviceportal (USP)' - http://www.usp.gv.at/. The portal aims to serve as a single entry point to public authorities for businesses. By offering information and transaction services, it intends to help businesses to fulfill their information obligations and to reduce their administrative burdens.
This business portal
- provides better “tailormade” information services for business,
- will allow faster and more efficient transactions with government and
- will help avoiding duplicated data reporting requirements.
The USP will be developed in several stages:
- In 2010, a full-fledged information portal has been set up.
- During the course of 2011 the Business Service Portal will be successively expanded. Currently a pilot project is taking place. The participating businesses are able to test various features in order to prepare the planned all-access operation.
- From 2013 onwards, special emphasis will be placed on interfaces to ERP-systems, streamlining administrative procedures and avoiding multiple reporting of the same information; regional and local eGovernment applications shall be integrated.
Reduction of administrative burdens for citizens
In April 2009 the Austrian Federal Government launched a programme on the reduction of administrative burdens for citizens, including a focused baseline measurement, accompanied by fast-track-actions in the areas of birth, marriage and death. Approx. 4,000 interviews have been conducted from September 2009 until February 2010.
After the extrapolation of the results and the analysis of the qualitative questions, workshops aiming at the identification of tangible reduction measures for citizen were organized. More than 150 measures identified in these workshops have been reported to the Council of Ministers on 24 August 2010 where the next steps for the programme have been decided on. The next step will be the implementation of concrete measures starting from fall 2010 onwards.
