OECD Peer Review of E-Government in Denmark - ePractice.eu

CASE STUDY 2: ACHIEVING E-GOVERNMENT READINESS - eDay
The eDay initiative (implemented as eDay and eDay 2) has been a key element of the Danish
e-government strategy. Developed under the auspices of the Joint Board of e-Government with project
leadership provided by the Digital Task Force, eDay is unique among OECD countries. The
overarching goal of eDay has been to rapidly achieve government-wide readiness to securely exchange
electronic information, and create public expectations of electronic communication being the norm for
the public sector.
eDay
The first eDay occurred on 1 September 2003. The goal was to remove the need for paper-based
communications within government as far as possible. All government organisations were given the
right to demand that exchanges of information with other authorities be conducted electronically, and
to refuse to accept non-electronic communications. The only exemptions allowed were for documents
that contained identifiable personal information about citizens, information which for reasons of
confidentiality or security can only be communicated electronically using digital signatures, or preexisting
information only available in paper form. The initiative included all State, regional and local
government organisations. Although eDay did not create a right for citizens and businesses to insist on
digital communication with government, each organisation was encouraged to offer them this ability.
By the end of eDay, 100% of public authorities had met the criteria required for taking full
advantage of their new right. In October 2003, a survey of all government organisations showed that
75% of public government organisations both sent and received either no or very few paper
communications that should have been exchanged electronically. The goal of eDay was to reduce
paper-based communication across government by 40% within six months. Measurements showed that
this goal was reached. For example, there was a 60% reduction of paper-based communication in the
Ministry of Finance after only two months.
For a majority of organisations, the first eDay was seen as being more of an organisational than a
technological challenge. One of the key issues was the need for effective controls over outgoing and
incoming communications, as the choice of whether to send information electronically or on paper is
usually in the hands of individual employees. Organisations generally addressed this by deciding to
handle all types of incoming communications in a decentralised way, while managing all outgoing
communications centrally. Collaboration among organisations over this and other aspects of eDay
implementation was one of the keys to the success of the initiative, enabling both co-ordination and a
concerted focus on breaking existing traditions and patterns of communication.
eDay 2
eDay 2 occurred on 1 February 2005. Building on the achievements of the first eDay, and the
availability of the government public key infrastructure, from this date forward all communication
between government organisations, including the exchange of secret and personal information, has
been required to be handled electronically wherever possible. On top of this, through eDay 2 all
Danish citizens and businesses were granted the right to insist on electronic communications with
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