A strategy memo for Siim Sikkut, CIO for the Estonian Government
Estonia has led the world in creating a digital state and digital citizens. But its e-government services have not improved low citizen satisfaction with public services. So how can Estonia build on its first-rate digital government infrastructure — X-Road — to better serve Estonians? Open data.
Stakeholders
Citizens want greater focus on the quality, rather than convenience, of public services. Despite world-class digital government infrastructure, Estonia ranks low in terms of citizens satisfaction with core public services like healthcare and education.
Government ministries have evolving data infrastructure requirements to deliver the 3,000 services offered through Estonia’s government services portal. Dynamic sectorial regulations at the national and EU level, as well as disparate internal information systems, can mean these requirements may come into conflict.
Businesses in Estonia rely on foreign investment and larger markets in the EU and beyond to drive the economy. Particularly in the high-tech start-up sector, which is focused on cross-border data flows and has produced successes like Skype and TransferWise.
Digital Service Maturity Analysis
Estonia’s key digital government strengths lie in its political environment. The digital agenda has had widespread cross-party support since 1992, seeing key digital standards like digital identify, e-signature, and data protection enacted into legislation, including the once-only principle.
Estonia has strong institutional and delivery capacity through a “a model of networked leadership” that drives cross-agency collaboration, rather than a Digital Service Unit (see cybersecurity example below). Funding and procurement approval is centralized in the Government CIO in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, ensuring IT projects align with the government’s overall architectural framework. X-Road is open source, meaning work on Estonia’s underlying digital infrastructure is open to the public and there is a strong community of users providing constant feedback.
Example of Estonian cross-agency collaboration (cybersecurity)
Estonia has strong digital skills and hiring practices. Its Tiger Leap education program and strong links between the private and public sectors provide a pipeline of talent. Its eGovernment Academy offer on-the-job training for public servants.
Estonia is a model for cross-government platforms in digital infrastructure, with X-Road enabling 99% of state services to be delivered online. This includes cross-border service delivery between Estonia and Finland, with both governments jointly governing X-Road as members of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS).
But Estonia is weak in open data. Despite Estonia’s data sharing infrastructure, in 2019 it was ranked in the bottom 25% of OECD countries in terms of the openness of useful re-useable data. With the potential of big data to transform government services and policymaking, Estonia risks falling further behind its peers in the quality of public services. A French study benchmarking different approaches to data sharing infrastructure notes X-Road’s focus on administration simplification. It points to weaknesses in opening and operationalizing big data to leveraging insights and private sector solutions.
Where Estonia is also weak is user-centred design. While pro-business digital services like e-residency for foreign-based entrepreneurs make Estonia the 18th easiest place in the world to do business, it falls in the bottom quartile of OECD countries in terms of citizen satisfaction in public services.
Objectives
In developing its strategy for digital government, Estonia should focus on three objectives:
- Improving core public services for Estonians, such as healthcare.
- Stimulating Estonian trade and investment.
- Optimizing government processes and administration.
However, tensions appear when attempting to address these concurrently.
Policy Options
The below policy options focus on using specific levers to force change in digital government.
One: Prioritize cross-border services to improve interoperability.
Use Estonia’s technical capacity to support neighbouring countries to deploy X-Road and use platform control to incentivize membership in NIIS to drive interoperability of data and cross-border delivery of services.
Pros
- Improves mobility for Estonian businesses operating and serving customers in neighbouring countries.
- Improves the foreign investment environment in Estonia in terms of ease of meeting local registration and tax requirements.
- More NIIS members would strengthen NIIS’s voice in setting EU-wide data exchange and digital service standards. This could increase the likelihood that future EU regulations and standards are compatible with Estonia’s.
Cons
- Given Estonia’s maturity in digital services, it will take new NIIS members time to catch up to Estonia’s level of digital government implementation. This may slow efforts to develop X-Road to accommodate changing demands from businesses and citizens and to deploy new digital government use cases.
Two: Prioritize open public data to leverage the private sector.
Use proximity to power to introduce a policy mandate for public bodies to publish public data by default in a structured and API accessible format suitable for machine learning. Reinforce data interoperability and API standards through platform control by making the use of those standards a requirement for accessing X-Road, particularly in core public service sectors such as healthcare.
Pros
- Open machine-readable data unlocks innovation and performance, particularly in core public services like education, transportation, energy and healthcare.
- Can help Estonian start-ups develop innovative new products and services based on machine learning and data science.
Cons
- Estonian data standards could become incompatible with those in the larger EU market. In coming years the EU will be developing sectorial data spaces, including sector-specific data standards. Given Estonia’s small size, the ability to combine its datasets with those of neighbouring countries will be key for its businesses to leverage the scale needed for machine learning.
Three: Prioritize new use cases for digital government.
Use Estonia’s technical capacity to enable new use cases in digital government beyond transactional services. Lock-in new approaches through design standards that spur their uptake.
Pros
- Pushing the envelope on digital government and sharing the learnings across ministries can make government solutions more responsive and effective, improving government processes while saving time and money. Optimizing government processes potentially helps improve core public services.
Cons
- Pursuing new use cases could require changes to Estonia’s X-road that put it out of step with the needs of Finland and potential NIIS members. This could create conflict in joint governance of NIIS and barriers to entry for new NIIS members.
Summary of Options
Recommendation
I recommend prioritizing open public data to leverage the private sector. There is enormous potential to improve Estonia’s core public services by making public data more available. If data is readily machine-readable, the private sector can leverage big data and machine learning to enhance public services through complementary services and products.
Open data will also create opportunities for start-ups to develop RegTech and other tools to assist both governments and industry reduce risk, optimize compliance and improve administrative processes. Once tested at home, these technologies can find markets abroad, stimulating trade and investment.
Implementation
- Amend the Public Information Act to make it mandatory for publicly-funded bodies to publish data in a form that is structured, API accessible, and suitable for machine learning, unless compelling reasons not to do so. Such reasons include the sensitivity of the data due to privacy, intellectual property, trade secrets, national security etc.
- Establish a central data authority to coordinates access to various datasets under single license in compatible data formats, like Finland’s Social and Health Data Permit Authority.
- Authorise the central data authority to develop mandatory data and API standards for core public service sectors such as healthcare. This should be done in close consultation with industry and the Estonian Centre for Standardisation and Accreditation.
- Engage closely with the European Commission to mitigate the risk of Estonia’s data standards diverging from EU-wide standards. This should include active involvement in EU data standardization projects, such as the Joint Action Towards the Health Data Space.
This memo was written for a class on digital government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
