Interoperability at the Pan-European Level John Borras Assistant Director Technology Policy

Why Interoperability? Modern joined-up and web-enabled government, at local, national and European levels, demands joined-up, interoperable, information systems –working in a seamless and coherent way across the public sector –aligned to the the global information revolution –providing citizens and businesses with better access to government services –enable the exchange of information between Member States.

Its role in the delivery of e-Government Services Delivering e-Government services requires agreed interoperability specifications Inter and Intra government communications require agreed interoperability specifications Means of harnessing data in legacy systems in short term whilst setting the standards for new systems in the longer term

Local Authorities Departmental Systems Other Public sector Systems Access Channels Infrastructure Citizen & Businesses Government Systems GSI Government Gateway Private Sector Portals Government portal Local Authority Portals Multiple Access Channels DTVMobileCall CentrePC Users e-government Services

Overview of UKs Experience UK Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) first published in September 2000, now on version 4 Since then significant interest from other countries in EU and rest of world Many countries are working on Interoperability policies and specifications, focussing very much on the technical aspects of interoperability Suppliers are very supportive of e-GIF Our experience suggests there is a real demand for a European Interoperability Framework

Scope of e-GIF Focuses on 4 aspects: –Interconnectivity - specifications for systems interconnection –Data integration - specifications for data sharing –Information access - specifications for accessing information by a range of delivery channels –Content management - specifications for the addition of metadata to government resources

e- GIF – Headline Decisions Adopts Internet and World Wide Web Standards for all public sector systems Adopts XML as the key standard for data interchange Makes the Browser the key interface for access and manipulation of all information Assign Metadata to government information Adopts standards that are well supported by the market Internet based Implementation Strategy through UK GovTalk e-GIF is mandated on all UK Public Sector Systems

Related Initiatives IDAs European Interoperability Framework project IDAs Architectural Guidelines IDAs MiREG project OASIS e-Gov Technical Committee Members States interoperability projects

Scope of Pan-European Framework Interoperability policies, eg adoption of WWW standards, use of XML, information access via Browsers Agreed technical specifications, e.g. interconnectivity standards, XML schemas, data standards, metadata Management arrangements Change Control procedures Compliance processes

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