Presentation by Hans Arents at seminar 1 held on 4 March 2021, which addresses life-events in public service delivery: what and how? This event takes place in the framework of a series of webinars organised by the SIGMA Programme, a joint initiative of the OECD and EU, principally financed by the EU, on the role of life events in end-to-end public service delivery.

1. Applying the life
events approach
in Flanders
Hans C. Arents
senior advisor digital government
hans.arents@vlaanderen.be
@ArentsHA

2. Applying the life events approach in Flanders
• What are life events and how can they be used?
• Using the “life event scan” design methodology
• The key: (inter)governmental data sharing
• Next step: personalized digital services
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3. What are life events?
• Life event = the combination of needs and expectations that users
experience during a certain situation or moment in their life
• I want to get married > I want a marriage certificate
• I want to start a business > I want an official VAT number
• I want to remodel my house > I need a building permit
 all the different actions the user has to undertake and all the
administrative processes he or she has to go through during that event
• The user will need to get in touch with one or more separate
government organizations, at different levels of government
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Successfully dealing with life events involves the co-operation …
… of multiple separate organisations at different government levels

5. What are the most important life events?
• Based on frequency in life and degree of complexity
as experienced by the citizen
• I have become unemployed
• I have lost a close relative
• I have built or renovated a house
• I (or a close family member) have developed a disability / chronic illness
• I (or a close relative) have been the victim of a crime
• Each requiring an interaction at least 2.5 separate
government organizations at different levels
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6. How are life events used in the design of digital services?
• The Flemish government has the ambition to operate as 'one government’
 One stop shop  single portal is not feasible
 No wrong door  you are helped everywhere
requires an analysis of the functioning and services of the government
from the perspective of life events
 life event scan
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7. Using the “life event scan” design methodology
• A life event scan consists of 3 activities ...
1. Gathering of user insights
2. Screening of the relevant regulations
3. Analyzing the administrative processes involved
• … resulting in adjustments and improvements in 3 areas
1. Changes to the regulations (at different government levels)
2. Improvements to the (online) provision of information
3. Simplifications to the underlying administrative processes
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8. The key: (inter)governmental data sharing
• Especially increased data sharing (within the same government level
and between government levels) can lead to important improvements
in the ease with which the user can deal with all the required digital
services during a life event
• An example: the life event “I have renovated a house”
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Successfully tackling the challenges of intergovernmental data sharing …
… leads to a major reduction in the amount of data requested from the citizen
Re-use already known data
stored in base registries
Harmonise and use
the same data definitions
Only request
relevant data
Re-use data already
requested by other
governments
Total of
data requests
276
249 175 77
  

10. The key: (inter)governmental data sharing
• Adhering to the ‘once-only’ principle: citizens and businesses
should supply their data only once to a public administration
• Requires:
1. Reusing data that is already known, i.e. consulting base registries
2. Reusing data that has been requested once already, i.e. passing on
to each other data that has already been collected before
• Using the Kruispuntbank Vlaanderen data exchange platform
• more than 120 services to request data from base registries
and exchange data between government institutions
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11. Next step: personalized digital services
• My Citizen Profile, a pluggable navigation bar that can be added to
any local, Flemish or even federal government website
• My Citizen Profile webpage provides a personalized overview of
• all the data we have on the citizen
• all the results of the services we provide for the citizen
by collecting and combining service data from the different
government organisations involved in the life event
• Our next goal: full control by the citizens of their own data
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12. My Citizen Profile = no wrong door
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No matter which
government website you visit
you’re always helped in the same way

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Local
governments
Flemish
government
Federal
government
My Citizen Profile web page

14. 14
Platform
for
exchanging
data
Service data
from
ministry A
Service data
from
agency B
Service data
from
agency C
Service data
from
locality D
Web page with a personalized citizen profile
Local
governments
Federal
government
Flemish
government
Flemish
government

15. My Citizen Profile + data vault
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Income
Proof of
diploma’s
Contact
details
Employer
Government
Insurance company
Data vault

16. Thank you for your attention!
Any questions?