http://www.projectdla.eu/dla/index.php

1. Final Results

2. Final Results - Index
General Information page 03
Partners page 05
General DLA page 07
Self‐evaluation tool page 11
PILOT PROJECT, Barcelos page 12
PILOT PROJECT, Western Macedonia, Greece
page 15
and in Municipality of Servia‐Velvento, Greece
SC Meetings, page 17
TSC Meetings page 17
Final Conference page 18
web site page 19
Credits
// Editorial. Eixo Atlántico do Noroeste Peninsular
// Texts. Manuel Aroso, Toru Oja, Janine Lopes, Lorenzo Sabatini, Paraskevi Gkiourka, Elena Mariño
// Graphic Design. Chus Torres
2

3. DLA project is an INTERREG IV C project aimed to improve regional po‐
licies in the fields of Information Society through the introduction of
the Digital Local Agenda in order to develop new activities related to
the application of the Information and Communication Technologies to
public services.
General Information
A Digital Local Agenda (DLA) is a common strategy shared with citizens,
for the development of the Information Society which bears in mind
socio‐economic, cultural and institutional factors. Digital divide in Eu‐
rope is a reality, and the economic and social development of European
regions is largely conditioned by the degree of implementation of the
Information Society. In the case of public administrations, the adoption
of Information and Communication Technologies tools in day‐to‐day
practices brings immediate improvements: more efficiency, more pro‐
ductivity and better services for citizens and businesses. However, the
extent to which the Information and Communication Technologies are
developed in public authorities across Europe in general and in the pro‐
ject partners in particular, varies from one region to another.
The DLA project is implemented through the second call for proposals
of INTERREG IV C Programme and is being developed since January
2010 to December 2012. It involves 11 partners from 9 countries across
Europe: Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Por‐
tugal and Spain). The INTERREG IV C Programme is contributing with
75% to the total budget of the project which is 1,491,456 euros.
To reach its objectives, the project fosters a permanent exchange of ex‐
perience among partners. It also aims to establish a cooperation net‐
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4. work among partners in order to update and improve knowledge on the
information society and its applications within public administration ser‐
vices.
Specific objectives of the project:
• Design a general DLA transferable to every Region,
• Elaborate a Common Methodology to adapt the general DLA to
every particular local situation,
• Involve all key stakeholders in the project and in the process of
building a DLA,
• Exchange experience,
• State the basis for future collaboration.
The project is structured into four main components including: manage‐
ment and coordination; communication and dissemination; exchange of
experiences; and case study implementation. The management and co‐
ordination component warrant the smooth and undisrupted implemen‐
tation of the project. The communication and dissemination component
is ensuring that the project outputs are addressing the public authorities,
citizens, and business for promoting the development of an appropriate
Information Society Strategy. The exchange of experiences is conducted
within a logical framework: diagnosis, sharing experience and structuring
future cooperation, in order to guarantee the added value of information
flow.
The Case Study is designed to demonstrate that the Common Methodo‐
logy developed within the project is a useful tool that can be adapted to
a general DLA at a local level.
More information:
http://www.projectdla.eu
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5. 65
4
7
11
10
Partners 2
1 3
3
9
8
North Regional Development and Coordi‐
1 Portugal nation Commission
www.ccdr‐n.pt
Eixo Atlántico do Noroeste Peninsular
2 Spain
www.eixoatlantico.com
Agenzia per lo Sviluppo Empolese Valdelsa Spa
3 Italy
www.asev.it
Euregio “Pskov, Livonia", section Latvia
4 Latvija
www.pskov‐livonia.net
University Of Tartu
5 Eesti
www.ut.ee
Võru Maavalitsus ‐ Võru County Government
6 Eesti
www.voru.maavalitsus.ee
Midland Regional Authority
7 Ireland
http://www.midlands.ie
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6. University of Patras
8 Greece
www.upatras.gr
9 Macedonia University of Macedonia
www.uowm.gr
Regional Development Agency of North
10 Hungary Hungary (NORDA)
www.norda.hu
MFG Baden‐Württemberg mbH
11 Germany Public Innovation Agency for ICT and Media
www.innovation.mfg.de
DLA in brief
To improve regional policies in the fields of
Objective: Information Society through the introduction
of the Digital Local Agenda
Partners: 11 partners from 9 European Countries
Budget: 1,491,456 euros
EFDR Contribution: 1,211,872 euros
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7. General DLA
DLA overview
The concept of the Digital Local Agenda (DLA) born in 2005 by the II World Summit
on the Information Society (November 2005, Bilbao, Spain) of Cities and Local Go‐
vernments as instrument to fight the digital divide and ensure that all people in
the world can enjoy the benefits of the Information Society: it is mainly addressed
to the local public administration and regions as enablers of this worldwide e‐In‐
clusion process.
In 2007 the European Information Society Conference (EISCO) approved the Digital
Local Agenda Manifesto, so drafting the guidelines for the following DLA develop‐
ment and contextualization in all European countries.
The Digital Local Agenda is an instrument for the local planning of
e‐Government and development of the knowledge society which:
• Aims to modernize Public Administration organizations and
provision of services, establish a common strategy in their territory
with other public and private stakeholders to build strong local net‐
works in this domain and improve the dialogue with their own citi‐
zens and their participation in local decision‐making.
• Represent a flexible instrument that must be adapted in
each context to the specific conditions in which it must be imple‐
mented
• It’s a bottom‐up instrument that every local government puts into prac‐
tice in close cooperation with the region and the national government and with a
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8. positive but also critical approach on the strategies being implemented to im‐
prove them and bring them closer to the real needs. The main actors and en‐
ablers of the Digital Local Agenda are the local governments – mainly
municipalities but also counties, districts, provinces, parish, etc. – together
with their actual or potential partners interested in ICT –based service delivery
in the territories where they operate, as other administrations providing ad‐
ministrative and other municipal services to citizens and enterprises: chambers
of commerce and local entrepreneurs’ unions, health service inspections and
providers, decentralized state administrations, firemen, local banks, civic as‐
sociations and local networks, ONGs and voluntary associations, etc.
Nevertheless, even if DLA is essentially a process involving public and private
stakeholders in a local area or community, also Region have to develop own
strategies through a Regional Digital Agenda so to provide to all local adminis‐
trations common guidelines in developing the local ones, coordinate resources
and manage funds coming from the EU structural programs. In this context,
the Digital Local Agenda process aiming at transforming e‐Government in a
system that includes all administrations in the provision of administrative ser‐
vices, as well as on the other priorities indicated (such as e‐Inclusion and e‐
Democracy to improve governance and the competitiveness of local
economies), should be part of the regional strategy and supported by the Re‐
gional administrations.
DLA Project methodology
The INTERREG IVC Project “DLA” has its roots in the EISCO results.
DLA partnership, composed by 11 partners coming from 9 different
EU countries, jointly worked for exchanging experiences and pro‐
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9. viding a Common Methodology for facilitating the building of a digital local
agenda in a whatever EU local administration.
DLA project methodology has been structured
according to three main pillars:
1.‐ Self Evaluation Tools (SET)
As first step there is the need to make an accurate analysis of the state of the
art to give a position the local government in relation to the overall DLA goals
(that are to be established having also in mind the regional, national and Eu‐
ropean strategies on the Information Society and e‐Government). In other
words, it is absolutely indispensable to establish a “starting point”:
What can be initially done and what aspects of the local government action
must be improved through the Agenda in order to establish superior goals in
the future. For example, a small local government with a low automation of
its own services, insufficient skills among its personnel to manage ICT‐ based
services, and that is not part of a local network with other administrations,
will have completely DLA priorities in its plan that a local government with a
good level of automation, a well organized Electronic Development Depart‐
ment and that forms parts of a regional e‐Government network.
2.‐ Priorities and relationships (Matrix)
Secondly is necessary well focus the relationships among the possible results
of the self‐evaluation phase and the priorities on which focus the develop‐
ment of the DLA. Indeed, while the general priorities are often same for each
local administration, the specific “starting point” of a Public Administration
wishful to implement own DLA can hardly affect the order of the priorities to
implement and their level of complexity. In other words we have to grid in a
relationships table the possible follow –ups of the self‐evaluation tools, offe‐
ring to the PA more guidelines and priorities to develop in own DLA according
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10. to its actual capability and skill in ICT, automations, networking ca‐
pability, etc..
3.‐ Policy planning (DLA document)
Finally, all results of the previous step have to flow in a policy docu‐
ment where a 3‐5 years planning to implement the selected priori‐
ties as planned. This document has to combine both technical skills
and capability to describe adequate activities and roadmap for the prio‐
rity implementation and policy knowledge, being anyway a strategic and
planning document of a Public Administration
At this purpose, the Technical Steering Committee of DLA project has
been split in 3 Working Groups so to deal in parallel way with each one
of previous steps, deepening problems and solutions, and finally achie‐
ving adequate tools to test in two different municipality areas.
The results of the 3 Working Groups (Self Evaluation Tool, Relationship
Matrix and priorities, General DLA document) are been test with the
Municipality of Barcelos in Portugal and in Municipality of Servia‐Vel‐
vento and Region of Western Macedonia in Greece.
Methodology has been also presented at DLA Project Final Conference,
held in Tuscany (Italy) in October 2012, where the Digital Local Agenda
has been pointed out also as a suitable instru‐
ment for supporting the growth of Smart Cities
and Communities in the EU according to the
strategies promoted by the European Commu‐
nity through the arising Horizon 2020 frame‐
work.
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11. Self‐evaluation tool The Self‐Evaluation tool (SET) is a tool to help the public adminstra‐
tion to measure their current level in the context of Digital Local
Agenda. SET is one part of Common methodology towards DLA.
Answers to the questions are translated within the tool into evalua‐
tion of the level of certain aspects of application of the e‐society in
the area and, also, suggestions how the situation could be improved
For more information, further. Decision on what will be applied is still left to the adminis‐
please visit: tration – the tool can only provide help for deciding.
www.projectdla.eu
Questions may contribute to the evaluation of different priorities
(up to 6) and each priority evaluation has input from several ques‐
tions (2‐5). This makes the tool more rough and less dependant on
not answering all questions. Still, we suggest to try to answer to all
questions.
The case studies and communication of the DLA Self‐evaluation tool
(SET) brought out suggestions:
1) To add more metadata and guidelines for the use of the tool,
2) To make the tool more usable with widening the list of the soft‐
ware versions useful for application of the SET; and
3) To re‐evaluate some of the scoring options and questions used in
the tool.
The final version of the tool is available at
http://www.projectdla.eu/dla/?q=node/299
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12. PILOT PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Location:
BARCELOS, PORTUGAL
1. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The Municipality of Barcelos was the Local Municipality selected to test the
methodology of implementing a DLA, which led to a strategic document "Di‐
gital Agenda for the Municipality of Barcelos."
2. WHAT ARE THE OBTAINED RESULTS?
This project was developed in 2012 and began with an internal analysis of the
current situation in which the CM Barcelos was and the target to be achieved
in the near future, taking into account the work already done and the resour‐
ces affected and affect.
So we started by an analysis of the internal services of the Office of Adminis‐
trative Modernisation and Services of the Municipal, which was complemen‐
ted by external constraints. Also were identified Others Organizations,
Institutions and Services that have been considered they were or should be
partners in this project and with which they would have to coordinate efforts
and engage in the strategic plan. Then drew up an exhaustive survey and iden‐
tification of all projects that each of these partners had ongoing or completed.
It was always considered the possibility and interest of integration of internal
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13. projects in Local Digital Agenda, which was engaging and unifying as a channel
of communication and interaction with Citizens.
In the analysis of resources and strategy, was employed as self‐assessment
tool the SET. Although it was pointed out some limitations of this tool, its use
was positive and gave a strong contribution to the identification of the main
difficulties that the Services had, albeit the vast majority were already iden‐
tified, thus, confirmed this analysis.
As a result, the team prepared a bilingual document (Portuguese and English),
entitled "Barcelos ‐ Digital Local Agenda". In its content, the document starts
by " to describe this reality and mention the several existing projects and iden‐
tify valuable accomplished assets. " In projects related to the national pro‐
gram "Simplex autarkic", is stated that " The option for internal integration is
total. All our projects share the same database, in its research function as
well as when changing or uploading data, therefore, in many cases, each pro‐
ject is a theme interface of a global repository of information. The public ser‐
vice which is provided to the population is also our final goal since we chose
to share information in partnerships, such as the Local Water Supply Utility
Service and Sanitation Treatment and other Telecommunications, Electricity
and Gas Institutions, among others”.
Aspects related SPOC (single point of contact) are referred to by declaring
that " We aim to create a single point of contact for which our financial and
human resources will be guided….. We also aim, in three years’ time, to create
an intelligent assistance platform, in which the citizen will find answers to
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14. their questions and doubts”, which goes completely to meet the defined some
years ago by the European Commission, as SPOC. In this same document,
were identified the two major projects in execution, the institutional sites
and nine development projects. For each of these projects was elaborated a
project sheet, which contains the resources affected, the results achieved,
the status of the project and improvements.
The Municipality of Barcelos believes that with this project, reinforced the in‐
terest in implementing a DLA, aligning the strategy for Northern Portugal,
with the CCDR‐N and with the Eixo Atlantico, where interoperability with
other partners and even municipalities will surely make more sense and more
useful and efficient.
3. TO WHAT EXTEND IS OUR PILOT ACTION TRANSFERABLE
TO OTHER REGIONS?
The pilot project developed in Barcelos may be transferable to other regions,
as it collected experiences and sensibilities that are considered important.
Thus, a substantial part of the results of this pilot project can be applied in
other local authorities of similar size to that of Barcelos.
Although, neither the results were very different from what was expected,
neither tool (SET) can be considered completed and optimized, the metho‐
dology employed highlighted the difficulties, restrictions, limitations felt, and
allowed a better and more appropriate identification of partnerships the de‐
velopment of DLA.
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15. PILOT PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Location:
Western Macedonia, Greece and in Municipality
of Servia‐Velvento, Greece
DLA implementation in the Region of Western Macedonia,
Greece and in Municipality of Servia‐Velvento, Greece
The DLA Methodology that was produced within the context of the DLA pro‐
ject was pilot tested in the Region of Western Macedonia, Greece and in Mu‐
nicipality of Servia – Velvento, Greece. The main findings from the
implementation of the case studies are presented in the following sections.
CASE STUDY: Municipality of Servia ‐ Velvento
The testing of the DLA common methodology at the Municipality of Servia –
Velvento revealed the main areas of priorities. Initially, the main goal was set
and referred the provision of services that can be extensively used by citizens,
thus saving time and reducing administrative costs. The vision for implemen‐
ting the DLA is the provision of high quality digital services for the citizens that
can use what is offered for their own good.
The critical success factors are three. First of all, necessary funding is very im‐
portant in order to facilitate success of the DLA implementation. Another cri‐
tical factor is the political initiative, which is the will of the current and future
city councils to follow a solid plan for sustainable growth in the area of digital
communications. The last critical factor is the public awareness, the impor‐
tance that is carried into the factor formed by the readiness of citizens to de‐
ploy various digital services. Furthermore, there are four strategic goals
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16. identified, and for each strategic goal there is a selected action line. The
strategic goals identified include the infrastructure, the staff training, service
implementation and finally the citizen training.
CASE STUDY: Region of Western Macedonia
The DLA, implemented in the Region of Western Macedonia revealed a va‐
riety of issues. The RWM based on the results of the pilot DLA will attempt
to address and improve most of the Region’s main services provided to the
citizens and the companies. The vision for implementing the DLA is the pro‐
vision and the use of sophisticated on‐line services for the Region’s respon‐
sibilities.
Some of the critical success factors are the funding sources and the relevant
EU policies (LA, RIS3). Other critical success factors are the technological
aspects, the dissemination of actions, the education and the vocational trai‐
ning. The strategic goals of the DLA implementation include making admi‐
nistration more efficient with the use of ICT, advancing active citizenship,
the ICT efficient administration and ensuring that sufficient infrastructures
exist in all areas such as fast, reliable infrastructures (networks) providing
high‐speed and secured access to e‐services.
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17. SC Meetings
Venue Date
1ST Kozan 03.11.2010
2ND Tartu 05.05.2011
3rd Atholone 24.11.2011
Porto. 2012 November
4TH Porto 12.11.2012
TSC Meetings
Venue Date
1ST Brussels 27.05.2010
Tartu. 2011 May
2ND Brussels 05.10.2010
3rd Santiago de Compostela 02.03.2011
4TH Brussels 20.09.2011
5TH Stuttgart 20.03.2012
TECHNICAL
Brussels 10.05.2012
C3 MEETING
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18. Final Conference
The DLA project Final Conference was held in
Empoli (Tuscany‐Italy) on 24th October 2012
with the title “How to build a Digital Local
Agenda: from theory to practice”. The Confe‐
rence represented the final act of a three‐years
project period where DLA partnership ‐ 11 part‐
ners coming from 9 different EU countries ‐
jointly worked for exchanging experiences and
providing a Common Methodology for facilita‐
ting the building of a Digital Local Agenda in a Empoli. 2012 December
whatever European local administration.
lights problems and exchange solutions for
Conference aimed to point out the Digital Local Agenda a wide integration and use of the Digital
as a suitable “instrument” for supporting the growth Agenda in every countries. Attendances,
of Smart Cities and Communities in the EU according coming from 10 EU countries, was also
to the strategies promoted by the EC through the new warmly encouraged to participate to the
Horizon 2020 framework: together with the presenta‐ DLA project Open Consultations so to can
tion of the project final results, the panel discussion be active part of the process of building of
was focused on the exchanging of experiences on “how a Common Methodology for the develop‐
to build a DLA ….” including ongoing regional/national ment of the DLA.
strategies and running activities performed at
local/municipality level for its development. Opened Tuscany regional authority finally used this
by the representatives of the 11th hosting local admi‐ occasion to announce the launch of its
nistration, Conference agenda was divided in three new and first Digital Regional Agenda
sessions with a final round table where more than 60 which will draft the guidelines for every
stakeholders among high level regional representati‐ local municipalities for implementing own
ves, technical experts, local municipalities opened a digital agenda.
discussion with DLA project partners aiming to high‐
Empoli. 2012 December

19. WEB SITE
The web of the Digital Local Agenda (DLA) is the digital tool of communication
and information of this project funded by the European program INTERREG
IVC. It consists of various sections (local and general news, schedule, last ar‐
chives, links, gallery, documentation and final result) as well as a newsletter
every six months, a link to a public consultation about the draft and a calendar
whith the events related to information and communication technologies
(ICT).
In the section "news" there have been created two subparts,
one with local news of every region to which the partners be‐
long and another one of general news. Both subparts inform
about the advances and new projects that arise regarding the
ICT and their policies and levels of implementation. In the
section " final result " there can be consulted the conclusions
in regards to the project of the DLA after more than three
years of team work.
The aim of the web of the DLA is to establish an agile com‐
munication among its 11 partners, who belong to nine diffe‐
rent countries, in order to identify priorities, exchange
experiences, create a general design transferable to every region, elaborate a
common methodology to adapt the DLA to every local situation, involve all
the people interested in the project and in the process of building a DLA and
state the basis for a future collaboration.
After a few more than two years of running, the web of the DLA has been con‐
solidated as a platform from which the partners of the project have had the
opportunity to share and show their works, as at the same time it has been a
source of information for anyone interested in the field of communication
technologies.
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