- This is the statement of Tina Archard Heide, project manager of the Digital County Administration. She is fully aware that certain parts of the project may not be that visible to the citizens. However, the goal will be visible indeed:
- We need to take on the mindset of a modern enterprise: That the citizens, the 27 primary municipalities and the enterprises of the county should be treated as our clients and accounts. And we should be able to serve them and deliver services – on their terms, explains Tina Heide.
Rendering services to clients via the Internet is not just about having a smart and easy-to-use homepage – eventhough it's part of the project. The effort of creating an open digital administration is to a great extent focused on enabling the citizens to monitor their case and continuously watch the progress of the casework. And this kind of transparency – allowing everyone to monitor your work – will mean quite an upheaval to our staff, realizes Tina Heide.

Nordpol.dk – A Success
The Digital County Administration project consists of no less than 17 subprojects, mutually entangled in a innumerous ways. Some are really visible – for example the nordpol portal, which has been highly praised and is used by a great number of citizens in North Denmark. Other subprojects are less visible to the public, for example those dealing with the migration to electronic casework – or the encryption of personal information.
- Right now we have launched our first self-service, the application for digging etc. in a county road. Primarily the contractors, development firms and owners of supply traces will benefit from the new electronic form, but once it has been tested, more electronic forms will follow, declares Tina Heide.
Another visible example of the project is the new homepage of the county that was launched on July 1.

Personal Portal
The greatest advance, though, is being made in the Technical & Environmental Department:
- This August 1rst the department kicked off its electronic casework. Each staff member has a personal portal with documents, personal tools, subscriptions to various services etc. The cases received by the staff member will be on the portal, which automatically indicates the progress of the case. This also enables management to keep track of the case progress and the time spent – and to identify any ”bottle necks” in the organisation, says Tina Heide:
- Previously the case official went to his office and closed the door behind him, and in principle nobody was in a position to check how far that person had got in handling the case. With electronic casework all that is done in each office becomes highly visible – everyone can look anybody over his shoulder. Obviously the staff requires a period of adaption to this.
The technical and environmental Department is testing the new system for a period of two months. This is followed by an evaluation – and next it is to be implemented in other administrational departments.

No Hidden Cut in Spending
By the end of the project period on December 31, 2003 the ambition is not to have a complete digital county administration established.
- But the foundation will be made. We have established the tool and initiated a number of processes At that time digital casework and Internet enabled services will be natural elements in our daily lives.
But we need to go further in order to become a leader in open administration.
- It would be really easy to keep in the wake of others. But then again not as interesting and challenging, points out Tina Heide.
She is well aware that self-service via the Internet may appear as an ill-concealed attempt to cut back on spendings. But this is not the idea at all: