Today, administrative employees also expect a digital working environment that allows them to perform their tasks and communicate with each other as easily as possible. Demographic and financial conditions require processes to be optimized and made more customer-oriented through digitalization.
In order to meet these requirements, create synergies and benefit from each other's experience, the independent cities of Wolfsburg, Braunschweig and Salzgitter have been working together since September 2020 as part of an inter-municipal cooperation. Today, Friday, the district of Gifhorn joined as a further cooperation partner.
The first district councillor of the district of Gifhorn, Dr. Thomas Walter, signed the cooperation agreement in the presence of the heads of department responsible for digitalization from Braunschweig, Salzgitter and Wolfsburg. Previous experience with the implementation of the OZG shows that an association of municipalities is valuable in order to pool strengths and bring the municipal voice to bear in this process led by the federal and state governments.
"The digitalization of administrative services is an important aspect of our development into a smart city. As the city of Wolfsburg, we want to offer citizens real added value with digitalized processes. The expansion of the existing cooperation to include the district of Gifhorn will help us to achieve this. Each individual partner brings important experience and ideas to the table. Synergies can thus be optimally exploited," says Dennis Weilmann, First City Councillor and Head of Economic, Digital and Cultural Affairs for the City of Wolfsburg.
"Digitalization poses major challenges for the administration. I am therefore delighted that the district of Gifhorn is joining the cooperation agreement. The exchange on this important topic is essential and I am hopeful that together we can further develop our administrations and thus our citizen services," says Dr. Thomas Walter, First District Councillor of the district of Gifhorn.
"The implementation of the OZG is a milestone in the digitalization of services and represents significant added value for citizens. The processes involved are the same across all local authorities, so I absolutely welcome the fact that the district of Gifhorn is joining our existing cooperation with the cities of Wolfsburg, Salzgitter and Braunschweig," says Dr. Thorsten Kornblum, Head of Digitization for the city of Braunschweig.
"Together, we can better implement new digital applications for citizens, institutions and administrations. The Online Access Act presents us with tasks that we can implement more effectively for the benefit of citizens by working together," says Jan Erik Bohling, Head of Economic, Digital and Cultural Affairs for the city of Salzgitter.
The cooperation partners have agreed on a close and open exchange between the departments involved in the digitization of the administration with the aim of identifying commonalities in the areas of basic services, online services, specialist procedures and interfaces, developing initiatives and jointly approaching other levels such as the state or municipal IT service providers.