FAST - Secure Exchange Gateway (F.A.S.T.)

There is a constant flow of documents passing between public administrations in Europe - billions of documents for public accounting, for certifying events in the lives of citizens, legal documents and many others. European administrations exchange more than 6 billion documents annually. A key objective of e-government is to phase out this paperwork and replace it with electronic exchange. In accordance with the EC's e-Europe Action Plans, EU Member States have defined their own agendas in this respect - e.g. the ADELE initiative in France, Bundonline in Germany and .be in Belgium. These programmes with dedicated budgets aim to streamline administration through optimised use of ICT. Local authorities are at the forefront of this change. They are often the bridge between citizens and central administrations and must find practical solutions to improve their processes. The FAST infrastructure - a foundation for e-public services: CDC is the largest publicly owned financial institution in France. It provides finance for large public infrastructures and long term projects. Through structured operational actions it supports the e-enabling of the French public sector for the benefit of central administrations, local authorities and citizens alike. A simpler, streamlined, paperless administration relies on trust and confidence. CDC is heading a public/private consortium that develops the FAST trust infrastructure and is managing and supporting its practical and operational deployment in Europe. FAST incorporates 3 essential factors for delivering successful e-administration: 1. A joined-up approach: - Use norms and standards that support electronic transactions between central, regional and local administrations - Support exchange between different software systems through a fully interoperable platform - Develop dedicated and specific software interfaces for local authorities in order to avoid time-consuming duplication. 2. Deployment: - Support and facilitate local authorities' connection to the secure infrastructure - Simple to use, with dedicated training taking existing software tools into account - Widescale deployment facilitated by high level support services. 3. Security: - Service and maintenance for the lifetime of the infrastructure - Secure data transmission (particularly private data), offering full traceabiliy and transaction authentication - The secure infrastructure is compatible with all administrative functions.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The first FAST test took place in the French departement of Yvelines. Launched by the Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC) and the Directorate General for Local Authorities, French Ministry of the Interior the aim was to implement an electronic procedure for verification of compliance with official decisions. The success of the pilot is shown by the decision of the French Ministry of the Interior to adopt the system throughout France. Rollout of the system beyond Yvelines to four further departements started in 2005. A further pilot took place in the departement of Deux-Sevres. It evaluated the use of electronic exchange to send requests for validation of civil status information between the authorities and social organisations. It started on 10 September 2004 and involved three French social benefits managing organisations and five authorities within the Deux-Sevres departement. Electronic exchanges with the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies have also started. Citizens often find themselves at the service of the administration - acting as messengers, obtaining documentation from one administration level so as to present it to another. With FAST, one authority can automatically access and validate information held by another authority, saving the citizen the trouble of acting as a go-between. Authorities exchange a huge amount of correspondence. The management of this is a significant burden with no added value. The FAST electronic exchange system reduces the time needed for handling incoming documentation and administration officials can concentrate on more important tasks and respond better to the needs of citizens. With FAST, verifying the compliance of an administrative decision with the law is completed in 3-10 minutes - an example of how administrative services can be effectively modernised. FAST can be smoothly integrated into each administration's organisational structure and can be adapted to the working practices and existing systems used by officials with no organisational constraints and no interruption of service in the implementation phase. FAST offers greater efficiencies to civil servants by reducing time spent on sorting incoming documentation. Officials are able to concentrate on core responsibilities. FAST helps administrations to be cost efficient and to streamline their functions. It relieves civil servants from tasks with no added value and helps them be more productive. The majority of fraud cases concern falsifying official documents. Moving from a paper based system to electronic document exchange helps reduce or eliminate such cases. Electronic exchange also considerably reduces administrative errors, which occur due to the multiplication of paperwork and the mistakes inherent in any large information processing system. Recovering overpayments from citizens is a significant administrative burden for social organisations. FAST offers greater efficiency.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Lessons learnt

The FAST project work plan is based on an experienced methodology which can be used for any trust & secured public sector application. In France, FAST has worked from the outset with the government's Directorate General for Information System Security (DCSSI) to define security policies and to share advice regarding authorisation of documents through the system, as well as the certification and testing of the platform from a security viewpoint. FAST has been developed so that it can be adapted to the particular requirements of all workflows. Security specifications are therefore defined according to the needs of each user. A programme of working group activities, mediated through virtual and live meetings, discussions and documents should be initiated in the areas of interest confirmed in French deployment. Such groups should be capable of generating valuable material which has an authority associated with its collective authorship and they represent examples of full Private Public Partnerships. To deliver these benefits two requirements must be met: - The issues under consideration must be material of interest and relevance to a group of participants who have the mix of skills and experience to consider them - The process requires specialist support and facilitation, which includes drafting and may include research assistance. FAST may provide not only the initiation and direction of an ongoing programme of working groups but may also provide the infrastructure and support required to ensure that potential benefits are realised and exploited. We are ready to present the FAST services and to participate in workshops. We are also ready to organise "open door" joint events with our sister administration and to provide a connection and a security tool kit (signature, ciphering) for free at the disposal of system integration companies. We are also ready to provide specific training on these tools and we are ready to provide open interfaces for the FAST system through web services. Public bodies able to work on for a very long time before reaching a reasonable return on the investment have to take charge of this kind of long term development. In fact, private sector is not ready to invest in such a kind of solution for this main reason, but once the pace has been given and "de facto" a standard accepted, the private sector starts to invest in this market. As we can see in France, it took more than two years before reaching a consensus on the FAST protocol and now independent software houses are delivering new services to their customers. From the current deployment we realise that training represents more than 50% of the financial effort needed to fully deploy FAST services. This is due to the fact that FAST implies a complete reshaping of back office procedures, creating new ways of handling contractual and procedural obligations. FAST creates the environment to enable government and citizens to benefit from transformation.