Administration wants to switch to digital files by the end of 2024

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• Senator for the Interior Iris Spranger, State Secretary for Digital Affairs and Administrative Modernization Ralf Kleindiek, and Deputy District Mayor of Berlin-Mitte Ephraim Gothe stand in front of a "Digital File Start Screen" at the launch of the digital file in the Mitte district office.

Berlin wants to make significant progress in digitizing its administration over the next year and a half.

Working with digital files should be much faster and make many things possible in the future, Senator for the Interior Iris Spranger announced on Monday (June 13, 2022). The district office in Berlin-Mitte is the first authority to use the new version for electronic file management, which is to be introduced statewide by the end of 2024.

"Basic equipment of a modern administration"

Digital files will then be available nationwide at about 70,000 desks in about 80 public authorities, Spranger said. "For me, the digital file is part of the basic equipment of a modern administration." Spranger announced that a number of other authorities should be added to the list of those switching to electronic file management this year.

Location-independent access for employees

In the future, employees of the state of Berlin will be able to use it to create documents digitally with just a few clicks and then continue working with them. It will also be possible to access a file regardless of location, for example when working from home, and to share it with colleagues, said Spranger. "That will change and simplify a lot of things." It will also contribute to a better work-life balance, the SPD politician said, and help make the administration an attractive employer for young people, she added.

"A big step for Berlin's administration"

Until now, Berlin's public authorities have tended to have a rather outmoded image. The deputy mayor of Berlin-Mitte, Ephraim Gothe, described the reality in social welfare office, where employees still have to push files around the corridors with file carts. The introduction of digital files should put an end to the circulating folders that are transported from office to office. "This is a big step for the administration, but a small step for mankind," Gothe admitted - because in many companies, electronic file management has long been part of everyday life.

Involvement of the entire administration

Berlin's new Chief Digital Officer Ralf Kleindiek, State Secretary for Administrative Modernization, pointed out that Berlin is not doing terribly in a comparison of German states. The entire administration of the capital is involved in the introduction of the digital file - including main administrations as well as district offices and subordinate authorities. "That is by no means a matter of course. We are unique in Germany with this solution," said Kleindiek.

15 administrations to be digitized by the end of 2022

However, there have already been many announcements in Berlin about digitizing the administration. Now, a timetable has been introduced for how things are to proceed. By the end of the year, the interior administration, the police, the justice administration, district offices in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Steglitz-Zehlendorf and Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and the state offices for refugee affairs and for immigration are to be digitalized, among others - 15 administrations in total. "Next year, 25 more are to be added, with the remainder to follow in 2024."

Digital files already in use in Mitte

In Mitte, the gradual introduction of the digital file for the administration's approximately 3,000 employees began just under a month ago, as Gothe said. "The digital file is not an end in itself," he stressed. The goal, he said, is to make administrative services available to citizens more efficiently.