The government is launching the gov.pt brand, which standardizes the channels for the provision of public services, the aim of which “is to facilitate the relations between citizens and companies with the state,” the Minister of Youth and Modernization told Luce.
“We have a growing number of ‘websites’, we have more than 300 marked, and citizens often do not know where to go, or they have to go to several ‘websites’ to be able to deal with, sometimes even the same problem,” explains Margarida Balseiro Lopes.
The aim of “creating a single portal of digital services under the gov.pt brand is for citizens to be able to access this ‘site’ and there be able to process a range of services provided by the public administration,” says a government official.
This is based on an “omnichannel vision”, that is, on “the citizen’s ability to process this (…), the integration of all service channels, ultimately starting with the telephone and ending, for example, with a single service portal digital,” the Minister of Youth and Modernization continues.
And what will be on the portal? For example, “it will have a history of interactions, namely the interactions that this citizen had with IMT or IMI, which he had in the financial department and which ended, for example, in the payment of an amount through an interaction he had with the website.”
All this is “always with the concern of how we can facilitate the interaction of the state with people,” the official confirms.
The single portal for digital services gov.pt will be launched in September, and an “app” will appear next year. [aplicação] “The philosophy of which is precisely” that “the state concentrates on this application the various services that it provides to citizens,” he says.
“We need to prioritize digital,” but to do that, “we need to inform and empower people, and we haven’t been successful in that exercise, and we need to improve the way we inform people because they often come in person because they don’t know what they can treat themselves to, for example, at a citizen’s store,” he emphasizes.
And we also “have to tell people that, because they have more difficulty accessing these services digitally, there are spaces that are civic spaces, of which there are 891 at the moment – the last one was opened in Braga, and we have a horizon of 400 by 2026 – so that they have someone who is a kind of intermediary who supports, who helps the citizen deal with a certain problem through a tablet,” he explains.
It is a digital service, but with support: “This is a very important dimension, because the person provides this support in these Spaces. [Cidadão] for two reasons: firstly, it helps that citizen solve his problem, and secondly, it makes him more autonomous so that in the future he can use digital channels.”
The gov.pt brand, he adds, “will be announced at NOS Alive.”
“We will have a ‘stand’ with the brand,” and in September a “website” will be launched, which is a project consisting of several stages.
In addition, “this month we will have the first Ministerial Council on digital transition and modernization, which is also a change, since we have ministerial councils that meet every week, but given the centrality of this topic (…) Ministerial councils dedicated to this issue will be held every quarter, he emphasizes.
“Why is this? Because it is not in one ministry. It is in several ministries. This means that in this Council of Ministers, which is headed by the Prime Minister, the statuses are updated and new initiatives are presented so that these efforts concern not only the Ministry of Modernization,” but all ministries and the entire state administration.
The answering service, which is currently only available in Portuguese, will now be available in other languages.
“Today we have a very significant percentage” of foreigners living in Portugal, and “we also need to have a response in these languages,” he explains.
When asked whether there would be additional personnel, the Minister of Youth and Modernization responded: “We must use the many resources that we have, and this also worries us, especially because we recently had a resolution of the Council of Ministers. “On strengthening the service without appointment.
“It is very important to understand that the problems are not the same in municipality A or municipality B, or even in a store, or in space A or space B. And therefore, there must be a designation of the existing restrictions and what they are. These are the reasons,” he continues.
In some cases there will be a shortage of human resources, “but in other cases there is a mismanagement of the resources currently available, and this is where we will also have to act,” concludes Margarida Balseiro Lopes.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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