Making Life Easy for Citizens and Businesses in Portugal: Administrative Simplification and e-Government

Reducing the time for registering a company from weeks and months to under one hour is a concrete result of a unique and ambitious initiative in Portugal to make the public sector more efficient and effective. The Simplex initiative aims at making life easier for citizens and businesses. It focuses on how e-government can be used as a lever for broader administrative simplification, making service delivery more coherent and efficient. This is the first integrated study undertaken by the OECD to analyse administrative simplification and e-government in a national context. By bringing those two areas together in the context of public management reform, this review helps countries identify how these reform activities can best support overall government performance and economic growth. Table of Content : Assessment and Proposals for Action Chapter 1. Country Profile and Context Chapter 2. Policies and Strategies Chapter 3. Legal and Regulatory Context Chapter 4. E-Government for Simplification Chapter 5. Implementation Tools Chapter 6. Performance Tools Annex A. Economic and Social Background Annex B. Public Governance Structure in Portugal Annex C. History of E-Government in Portugal Annex D. Methodology Annex E. Survey on the Simplex Programmes, October - December 2007 Annex F. Main Initiatives in Simplex 2006-2008