In the Mayor’s Office of Town Ludbreg, a workshop on the implementation of ICT technology was held as part of the project “Development of Cross-Border Strategic Cooperation between Ludbrega, Prelog and Letenye”, acronym DESCO which is co-financed by the Interreg V-A Hungary-Croatia 2014-2020 cooperation program.

The workshop was held in two parts. The first part referred to the theoretical part where the participants have been informed about the latest tools in the area of ​​information and communication technology, and the second practical part which was related to the application of information and communication technology in public administration.

The latest technologies available in the market, such as IOT, cloud, big data tools and collaboration tools were presented with the aim to increase the level of informatization in public administration, to boost innovation and broaden transparency, to enable data rationalization, to improve internal office communications and to present the tools needed for more efficient planning of work tasks between internal units in local self-government and employees.

During the workshop different problems were identified with which public administration faces. The problems mainly relate to the structure of public authorities, different methods of action and monitoring in local self-government units. As a problem, the difficulty of communicating between internal organizational units and between employees is also evident because communication tools that are used are only e-mail tools and direct communication. “Such work methods often lead to duplication of work tasks and loss of relevant information due to the lack of a central smart tool that would allow for the visibility of all data, started or finished work tasks and created documents in one place in real time,” said Petra Međimurec, DESCO project manager and she also said that such a system hast to be one of the steps in the direction of improving the work of public administration, because in that area has so much room for improvement.

“The application of ICT technology among employees provides certain advantages that enhance collaboration, efficiency and task performance. The current state of usage of ICT technology demonstrates that Office tools and bookkeeping programs are mostly in use, while other tools, especially in project management, are used to a lesser extent. Some of the reasons for the inadequate use of ICT in the public sector relates to insufficiently developed awareness of the opportunities that such tools have on improving public administration work, existing ICT equipment is largely outdated, which means that communication between different administrative bodies is hampered, and the level of service provision is significantly reduced, “said Mayor Dubravko Bilić. He also noted that the workshop was trying to detect problems, but also find some solutions to improve co-operation and work in public administration because he believes that public administration is a service to citizens and as such it must be fast, efficient and easily accessible. “And if new technologies help us, it’s up to us to implement them and try to use them efficiently for the benefit of the whole community,” said Mayor Dubravko Bilić.

Photos of the workshop can find on the following link: Workshop in Ludbreg