Simplified Business Information in Portugal (IES)

Every year, the portuguese companies must deliver to four different public services information concerning is activity. Until now most of this information was provided on paper and separately to the four services. The SBI [IES] is a new way for companies to deliver information on-line to public services. by using a totally dematerialized procedure. This service allwos to fulfill, at once, the following obligations: 1) Deposit of annual accounts in Business Register; 2) Delivery of annual fiscal declaration to Ministry of Finances and Public Administration; 3) Delivery of annual information to National Statistics Institute for statistical purposes; 4) Delivery of information to Portuguese Central Bank. After beeing submited online in just one moment, information is spread by those entities.

Policy Context

This case is part of a much larger program of red tape reducing, by the elimination of administrative burdens – The SIMPLEX (http://www.ucma.gov.pt/simplex) – and aims the promotion of the use of new technologies, purpose pursuit by the PLANO TECNOLÓGICO (http://www.planotecnologico.pt) , a program of the XVII Portuguese Government. These programs integrate themselves in the European Policies in this area. The IES may contribute to the transparency of portuguese business by providing better and more reliable information about companies. This improvement means less risk for national and foreign investors and companies who want to work with the portuguese companies.

Description of target users and groups

The target group of this case are all companies in Portugal, approximately 350.000.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

The management of the process was assured by Ministry of Justice, with the participation of the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado, IP. Other major actor was The Ministry of Finance, (tax administration). Important parts were played by the Portuguese Central Bank and by the National Statistics Institute. Multi-channel issues: The SBI[IES] implies the uses of computers and the internet for delivering the information. Information can be provided on-line by filling a web form or it can be submitted automatically through the applications used by companies in XML language.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The project will generate a revenue of 85€ for each set of information for a target of 350.000 companies. Since is the first year of project effectiveness and the date for the delivery expire in late June is impossible to measure the global impact. Until 8 of June we have receive 10.950 sets of information. We estimate a global direct cost reduction of 5.250.000 € resulting of the price reduction (discount price of 15€ for the target of 350.000). Innovation: What is knew about this case is that companies and sole entrepreneurs no longer have to deliver the same information, with in four different moments to four entities of Public Administration. Now the information is delivered in just one moment and the entities of administrations established a system to make it circulate between them. The central idea if this case is that the citizens/companies must not have to deliver to the Administration information that already exists there, although in another entity.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

The IES project started just two months ago. At the moment there are no cross-border exchange of experience. Anyway, the integration and interoperability solutions used on this project may be useful to other public administration services in Portugal and abroad. The Instituto das Tecnologias de Informação na Justiça, who is responsible for the interoperability platform used in this project, will share the experience with other portuguese IT departments. Also, all the effort to merge the companies data that used to be delivered separately to public services may be shared with other EU countries to contribute for the standardization of businesss information.

Lessons learnt

1.The first and major lesson about this case respects to possibility to overcome the differences between services and built a solution that benefices above all the citizens and the companies. 2.This case is also the starting point to continue reducing administrative burdens, by making the entities that integrate the Public Administration to coordinate themselves in order to share information. We believe other similar projects will follow, as we believe in the principle that citizens/companies shall not be asked twice the same information. 3. Egov can be an important tool to improve communication and interoperability between different public and private entities. Scope: National