This article is written by Florent Lesauvage, digital project manager, Manche Numérique

The French government wants to digitise 100% of its administrative procedures by 2022 as part of its framework of Public Action 2022.

This means that, if you’re a French citizen, you will be able to declare your taxes online, renew your passport and even file complaints online. In total, these administrative procedures add up to more than 250 different actions citizens will be able to take. But there’s also a challenge: almost 30% of the population — 14 million people —  are not part of the digital society, and don’t know how to use these new tools.

Digital brings new inequalities to light, between those who master this technology and those who are excluded from it: the digital divide.

The advantage of online

Digitising administrative procedures — or dematerialising them, as it’s called in France — simplifies access to information or administrative documents for a majority of users. It also makes it possible, in certain cases, to improve access for people who are often excluded, and to improve the real access of certain users to their rights, while better respecting their dignity.

As part of this plan, 1.5 million people — more than four times the population of Nice — must be trained each year

I’m thinking here of the endless queues at the counters of certain public services that citizens have to wait in simply to obtain an appointment, only to be disappointed when it turns out they’re not queuing in the right line for the service they’re after, or for other reasons that are sometimes difficult for the user to understand.

Through the administration transformation program, launched in October 2017 and dubbed "Public Action 2022", the government aims to improve the quality of service for users. In particular, the government wants to improve the trust between users and the public administration.

"Public Action 2022" has three major axes:

1. A new digital pass

Intended for citizens who experience the biggest difficulties in dealing with digital technologies, this pass is given by public service agents (employment centre, family allowance funds, departments, municipalities, etc) or digital helpers.

It gives the recipient access to 10 or 20 hours of training in order to allow their beneficiaries to create a mailbox, credentials, access their rights and do administrative procedures or job searches.

2. The establishment of ‘connected France hubs’

To accelerate the consolidation of the digital facilitation offer throughout the country, €5 million (US$5.4 million) has been committed in 2019-2020 by the Bank of Territories to create 11 territorial hubs.

The aim is to develop network head-ends to amplify the action of digital helpers in the territories.

These are local organisations that teach local residents how to use digital tools.

3. A training plan for digital helpers

Digital helpers are the most important component to help citizens who are unable to use digital tools. Digital helpers are most of the time paid by local authorities to train and help citizens in their digital needs.

To ensure qualitative help, a bunch of tools is available for these digital helpers. For example, the state supported the co-production of a MOOC on the challenges and good practices of digital mediation. A "Digital Helper Connect" site is under construction in order to secure the connection of digital helpers for the procedures they make for others. Two resource platforms are also available to local authorities and digital helpers (rapid intervention kit), etc.

Through these programs, the aim is to ensure that everyone can be trained or supported to use the new digital tools, and the initiatives are just a handful of several others in the plan. The objective is to detect the audiences who are furthest from digital, and to make them as independent as possible. As part of this plan, 1.5 million people — more than four times the population of Nice — must be trained each year.

Digital equality

Digitisation can be a powerful lever for improving access for everyone to their rights.

But at the same time, computer illiteracy, also known as digital illiteracy, is a growing concern, and studies show that there is a growing digital inequality in France. At a time when certain administrative procedures are only accessible online, such as the documents needed to renew your vehicle registration, several public institutions have taken up the question of digital illiteracy.

It is this digital divide that the national strategy seeks to address by fighting against digital illiteracy

It is this digital divide that the national strategy seeks to address by fighting against digital illiteracy, a necessity so that the government's plan, "100% of dematerialised procedures by 2022", is not a handicap for some of the users.

A digital public service remains above all a public service, with all that that imposes constraints to respect rights equally throughout the territory and for all categories of the population. The implementation of public dematerialisation policies must, therefore, respect the founding principles of public service: adaptability, continuity, and equality. — Florent Lesauvage

(Picture Credit: Unsplash)