Hungary Country Report Magyarorszag.hu and Magyarorszag.ugyfelkapu.hu

Transcription

1 Hungary Country Report Magyarorszag.hu and Magyarorszag.ugyfelkapu.hu Contents 1 Introduction Availability and quality of PSC services Provision of information on the types of administrative requirements applicable to both establishment and temporary cross-border scenarios Availability and quality of information Good practice: Structure and navigation of information Electronic completion of procedures: coverage and level of sophistication Assistance to PSC users Overall quality of PSC services for users from other countries Language support Finding the relevant information on applicable procedures Completing procedures electronically Use and usability Task completion Identifying the right procedures and finding appropriate information Completion of procedures Comparison of results between national focus group and other focus group General usability and user satisfaction Accessibility Take-up, positioning and promotion Administration, organization and back office enablers Back office integration and cooperation with competent authorities Finance and resources Status of key technical enablers (eid, e-signatures, e-payments)

2 5 Future Outlook Strengths, weaknesses and recommendations Availability and quality of PSC services Summarising expert assessment Use and usability Administration, organization and back office enablers

3 1 Introduction This country report provides an overview of existing Point of Single Contact (PSC) infrastructure and services offered in Hungary. The report provides details about the availability and quality of services found during portal testing by egovernment experts, views obtained from end-users from the Hungary during focus group sessions 1 about usability of the portal and the views of portal staff and other egovernment experts about the development and functioning of the portal. For ease of cross-referencing the text in this document with the appropriate tables, the tables have been placed in a separate annex. Annex B provides the tables referred to in this document. Annex A provides details of six scenarios used during the study; these are referred to in Section 2. In Hungary the Central Electronic Service System provides the basis for electronic administration. The PSC is an integral part of this system. There are two portals linked to the PSC in Hungary: for all users. Services merely providing information (e.g. law search, case descriptions) or downloadable documents to clients do not require identification. Identification is however required for submitting most of the information and downloadable documents and documents that the site provides. is a sub site to magyarorszag.hu (so called governmental portal ) where users have to sign up to use this website to complete processes. The sub site provides a platform for diverse electronic services (e.g. tax-return, notifications). In order to sign up, users first have to pay a visit in person to one of the Hungarian Registration Offices; alternatively e- signature (issued in Hungary) can be used for the services available online. The portal does not contain the EUGO logo and or visitors that it is a part of the EUGO network. 1 End-user testing was undertaken by focus group participants and Deloitte experts in each country studied. Participants examined the PSC in their home country and one other country. Details of the scenarios and country pairings can be found in Annex A. 3

4 The homepage of Magyorszag.hu is divided into three parts: News, Catalog and Search. No dedicated page is provided for foreign users. The thematic areas covered by the portal can be found in Table 1. Briefly the Hungarian PSC portal covers the following thematic areas: For starting up a business o Advice on grants, loans, funding, intellectual property o Advice on legal structures, company registration, permits, insurance Workplace Recognition of professional qualifications Employment Taxes The Magyarorszag.hu is maintained by the government, under the supervision of the Ministry of National Development and it is operated by a state owned company (Kopint Datorg Co.). Several organisational changes took place in the last 3 years in terms of supervision of the PSC. The PSC portal is built on an existing egovernment portal, launched in September It is part of the "Central Electronic Service System", which provides information and public services for citizens and businesses. Its scope is much 4

5 broader than the Services Directive, addressing both businesses and citizens and covering also procedures related to tax and social security formalities. In fact, its most prominent use at this stage relates to the submission of tax declarations by Hungarian businesses. In 2007 the Hungarian government started to implement the Services Directive. The related tasks were defined in 2008, and in 2009 the government launched the new legal framework. Arrangements and developments related to e-signatures were launched in The Trusted List of certification providers for e-signatures had to be ready by 2 December 2009 and was completed on time. The NMHH (National Media and Information and Communications Authority) maintains and endorses the Trusted List. Technically, the Trusted List and the software application are ready in Hungary (the system performed well during tests.) However, it is not integrated into the PSC. The technical developments allowing the integration of the Trusted List and the related software in the PSC are ongoing (see also section 4.1). The Hungarian PSC portal was restructured in the course of The homepage of Magyarorszag.hu and the most part of PSC are only available in Hungarian. 5

6 2 Availability and quality of PSC services Points of Single Contact are the most visible benefit of the Services Directive for businesses. They are meant to become fully fledged e-government portals allowing future entrepreneurs and existing businesses to easily obtain online all relevant information relating to their activities (applicable regulations, procedures to be completed, deadlines, etc.) and to complete electronically the relevant administrative procedures. The services offered by PSCs need to be available not only in the country of the administration but they must also be accessible for businesses from other countries, across borders. The degree of availability of services through the PSCs was analysed on the basis of six business scenarios. The six scenarios focused on concrete examples in three sample sectors architecture, restaurants/catering and tourism. One set of three scenarios focused on establishing a permanent business in the specific sector in Hungary these are called the 'establishment' scenarios. Three other scenarios investigated the steps required if someone from another country wants to temporarily provide a service in Hungary these are called the 'temporary cross border' scenarios. These terms are used throughout the tables and text in this report. Details of the scenarios can be found in Annex A. For each scenario, eight groupings of administrative formalities (e.g. authorization schemes, licenses, other procedures etc) that businesses are most typically obliged to fulfill in order to provide their service activities were examined. For each grouping, the study analysed to what degree information was available through the PSC and to what extent a business was able to complete the relevant procedures electronically. The eight groupings (henceforth called 'types of administrative requirements') are: 1. Company registration 2. Obtaining a general business license 3. Procedures relating specifically to the service provider/ profession that they are exercising (recognition of professional qualifications, licenses to act as a travel agent, architect, sell alcohol etc.) 4. Tax and financial formalities 5. Social security formalities 6. Regulations relating to the premises of the provider, such as providing proof of the location and/or ownership of the premises. 7. Procedures relating to the way the service are carried out and the place the service is carried out, such as applying for authorization to make outdoor sales or serve food on a street. (called 'operations and location' in later tables) 8. Procedures applying only or specifically to cross border provision of services 6

7 These eight types of administrative requirements cover the most common procedures businesses usually need to comply with when starting their activities. In order to complete the above requirements, service providers are often required to provide specific supporting documentation (e.g. proof of insurance coverage, proof of good repute, etc.). The different supporting documents are referred to in the tables contained in the annex as "Procedural components that may be relevant to the preceding procedures". They include: Provide a translation of legal documents produced in another country; Provide details of the location of the business; Provide proof of the ownership of the business; Demonstrate proficiency in the local language; Demonstrate good repute or the lack of a criminal record; Prove accreditation from a financial organisation guaranteeing funds if the business should fail; Provide official proof of your experience or qualifications; Provide official proof of your identity; Provide proof that you are not bankrupt; Provide proof that you have sufficient financial resources / solvency; Provide evidence of relevant insurance; Provide proof that you have no outstanding tax payments. The availability of most of these procedures is mandatory under the Services Directive, for others it is not (in particular social security and tax procedures). However, from a business perspective, it is strongly recommended to make available all these procedures through the PSCs as they are the main steps required to start a business or to provide cross-border services. In general, the regulatory environment can be assessed as moderately heavy. There definitely is room for simplification and streamlining of the procedures and the Directive can further be used in this area. The development of PSC has lead to some standardization and simplification of processed. However, there is still scope for simplification and streamlining of procedures within the implementation of the Directive can support the process. In this section the availability and quality of the three main tasks of the PSC are assessed: provision of information to businesses, completion of online procedures and assistance to PSC users. 2.1 Provision of information on the types of administrative requirements applicable to both establishment and temporary cross-border scenarios The obligation to set up PSCs means, in practice, that businesses must be able to complete the entire cycle of all procedures and formalities relating to the access to or the exercise of their activities without having to contact any institutional 7

8 interlocutors other than the PSC. The first key requirement for the PSCs is to make available all relevant information concerning applicable procedures Availability and quality of information In a first exercise we looked at the number and coverage by the portal of requirements or process steps needed for permanent establishment or temporary services provision based on the business scenarios described above, see Table 3. Table 3 shows that the Hungarian portal provides comprehensive access to relevant information and/or services to fulfill the requirements of all the six establishments, either on the portal or through links to other websites (only 6 out of 55 procedures were not served by the portal or linked websites).. In total, 55 regulatory requirements need to be undertaken to complete the six scenarios; 17 procedures (31.5%) of these were covered by the main portal, 32 procedures (58%) were covered by the web sites of competent authorities (e.g. Tax authority). The PSC portal directs to the individual authorities web sites where users could arrange the process. From Table 3 it is clear that for the Architecture sector most procedures are served on the portal (60%), whereas a lower percentage (33%) is served on other websites. In the case of the sectors Restaurants & Catering, and Travel Agents and Tour Guides only a small share of procedures are served on the portal (11% and 38%), whereas a higher percentage (74% and 58%) is served on other websites and respectively 7% 15% and 8% is not served online. Therefore it emerges that the architectural scenario is better served by the PSC portal than the other two included in the study. Logically, the establishment scenarios have significantly more regulatory requirements (50) than the cross-border service provision scenarios (5) without a new establishment as they are of higher complexity and usually involve formalities relating to premises, the environment, etc. In a second exercise we assessed the quality of the information provided by the portal for the eight types of administrative requirements mentioned previously. Table 4 shows that the portal is good at providing all the relevant information for seven types of administrative requirements. For those procedures covered by the PSC, the portal provides comprehensive information, including details on the forms and supportive documents to be submitted, on the format of supportive documents (e.g. whether certified copies or translations are required etc) as well as information on applicable deadlines. It is noteworthy that for most of the administrative requirements, the portal provides sufficient information in order to complete the task. The picture is slightly less positive concerning administrative requirements relating specifically to the service provider (e.g. recognition of professional qualifications). Although the portal does provide information on this, table 4 shows that this is much less comprehensive than for other procedures covered in the study. 8

9 Only little information is available for the tasks related to the cross-border scenarios (e.g. requirements for working abroad, Competition Authorities regulations, etc.). As mentioned previously, information on the travel and food scenarios is more comprehensive than those on the architecture case (i.e. recognition of professional qualifications), which is partly missing Good practice: Structure and navigation of information One of the best examples of good practice on the Hungarian portal is that users can find many details for one process (e.g. general business license) in the menu. The print screen shows a general description (with legal background), administrative tasks, competent authority, legal requirements, deadlines, decision types, licensing process of a full business cycle. These were acknowledged for being very focused and providing clear information for each situation. Another good practice example is the mailbox system, where the users can monitor the process of the submitted requests and associated cases (e.g. get direct notification if diving license, ID card is ready, etc.). Information about the applicable administrative procedures (to start up a business) can be accessed or searched in different ways, see Table 5. These include searching/access by type of user, stage in the business life cycle, service sectors (e.g. construction, tourism, retail) and by a thematic index of procedures (company registration, tax, etc.). The portal also provides comprehensive search options by alphabetical index of procedures, however it has to be noted, that it is necessary for a successful search to 9

10 be familiar with the relevant legislative background to know which legal term covers which topic. 2.2 Electronic completion of procedures: coverage and level of sophistication The Services Directive establishes an obligation on Member States to make it possible for service providers to complete a number of key administrative formalities related to the establishment or cross-border provision of services online and across borders. This includes both the submission of an application (with supportive documents) as well as the receipt of the administrative decision from the responsible competent authority. If e-signatures are required in the context of e-procedures, Member States have to accept as a minimum advanced e-signatures supported by a qualified certificate and, if justified, also supported by a secure signature creation device (i.e. the qualified e- signatures) 2 Moreover, MS have to be able to technically process certain formats of advanced e-signatures (C/X/PAdES) 3. The sophistication of the PSC portals in terms of online completion of procedures is examined with a commonly adopted egovernment maturity model with a four-step scale. The four steps or stages of development are: 1. Information: only the information required to understand how to complete the procedure is available; 2. One-way interaction: forms concerning the procedure that can be downloaded and printed are available (these can then be returned by post, or taken directly to relevant competent authority offices); 3. Two-way interaction: forms concerning the procedure can be downloaded and uploaded, which enables the entrepreneur to start the procedure electronically. However, procedures are not fully online, some tasks need to be completed via alternative means (e.g. by post or visit to an office); 4. Full case handling: the whole procedure can be completed online (including the receipt of the administrative decision). Table 6 shows that the portal offers the possibility to complete only a moderately low number of procedures electronically. Out of the 55 procedures, 6 (11%) are completely missing; all of which relate to the establishment cases (i.e. 10% of procedures relating to the establishment scenarios). As far as the establishment scenarios are concerned (50 out of 55 procedures), 7 (14%) are supported as information only (either on the PSC portal or on the websites of other competent authorities; 19 (38%) are available as one-way interaction (on competent authorities 2 Decision 2009/767/EC 3 Decision 2011/130/EU 10

11 websites), 14 (28%) as two-way interaction (both on PSC and other authorities sites) and 5 (10%) as full-case handling (only on the PSC portal). However, the degree of online sophistication differs, depending on the business sector. The Food scenario is the one with more procedures supported by two-way interaction, while the other (the Architecture and the Travel scenarios), mostly provide one-way interaction, and on a limited number of cases two-way interaction. Full-case handling is not supported. None of the cross border procedures are provided with full case handling. In fact, information only is available for the travel agent and tour guide and for the restaurant and catering scenarios. Table 6B shows that the two of the eight types of administrative requirements namely, general business licence and tax formalities) can be undertaken online as full case handling. The completion of six administrative requirements referred the user to the web site of a competent authority. In two cases it was only necessary for the user to visit two additional sites, for others up to 5 sites and 10 for company registration. Regulatory requirements and interaction with the portal for cross border users are not the same as for Hungary based users; online submission of forms and documents is generally not available for foreign users, electronic signatures and eids issues in other Member States cannot be used. In addition, foreign users are often required to provide official translations of supportive documentation. These requirements, plus the lack of available information and forms in languages other than Hungarian, make the use of the Hungary PSC portal very difficult for foreign users). Table 7 shows that it is possible to complete some of the procedures (like self employed company registration, tax returns) through the PSC portal. To complete a process it is necessary to sign up with the Client Gateway eid system ( Ügyfélkapu ) and to upload application forms (it has to be filled through the central JAVA based program). To obtain a valid eid that can be used on the PSC, the portal has implemented a registration system requiring the use of a supported electronic signature certificate 4. At this stage, only Hungarian certificates are supported, and coupled with the requirement of personal appearance, this means that supported eid/e-signature solutions will typically not be available to foreign service providers. Overall, the portal provides the following e-services: On-line company registration for self employed. Magyarorszag.ugyfelkapu.hu access only natural person, not available for legal entities. Licenses and registrations. A registration, activity license or other license is required in order to operate in an area of activity subject to special requirements. The construction activities registration is different from others. 4 See 11

12 One has to be a member of the Chamber of Engineers before being able to work in Hungary. The application must be sent by regular mail, only the application form is in the website. Social security forms (registration as an employer and registration as an independent professional/ sole trader) can be fulfilled online in Ügyfélkapu. The sole trader/self employed procedures can be completed interactively online, but applications for other personal licenses are not possible online. Apart from these, there are a number of procedures related to the premises of the provider (e.g. compliance with food hygiene and terrace permits), and procedures related to the way the service is carried out. Licenses related to the place the Service is carried out (e.g. license to provide entertainment, and licenses to sell or serve alcohol) are only available via one-way interaction (such as downloadable forms). Applications to register and for amendment of registration need to be submitted on paper, they need to be signed by a member of the management board or another person authorised to sign. As noted above, this process is thus not yet in line with the requirements of the Services Directive It should be noted that some electronic procedures are dealt with on other websites, but the entrepreneur is automatically redirected from the PSC website to the relevant linked central/local authorities portals. The portal does not enable electronic documents to be uploaded, downloaded and completed online using FTP and web forms. Table 9 shows that for the six business tasks to be undertaken in Hungary 14 documents need to be exchanged to complete the tasks. The portal describes the legal requirements of these documents and in some cases provides the form electronically. The submission of specific documents is provided centrally and locally. For example filling out documents related to Tax and Customs authorities are only feasible through a JAVA-based application. These documents are accessible on Ügyfélkapu s site ( Client Gateway ) only with the personal/e-signature identification. Other government web sites do not provide any opportunity to submit documents electronically; users can only download the necessary templates. Documents can be downloaded in variety of file formats, including MS Word, TXT, PDF, CSV, JPEG and TIF. Following the download, documents can only be submitted in hard copy. Some individual authorities websites describe only legal requirements or a list of administrative actions, there is no document template available. Generally, there are just a few opportunities to upload files. Communication processes are thus not yet in line with the requirements of the Services Directive, given the frequent need to use paper documents and paper mail. Table 10 shows that all types of administrative requirements require payment in Hungary. The PSC portal does not provide direct epayment facilities (credit card, debit card, others). Few of the tasks (e.g. social security forms) accept payment by 12

13 bank transfers for which it is necessary to upload a copy of the payment confirmation. Table 11 shows that five of the eight types of administrative requirements in Hungary provide the opportunity to track services, so users can monitor the progress of the services they require. Tracking services in the case of business registration, tax and social security, personal case confirmation are provided to users through the mail box system of magyarorszag.ugyfelkapu.hu. The Central Electronic Service System provides an Administration Gateway, secure Document Exchange Service and Organizational Mailbox for competent authorities enabling them to receive authenticated electronic messages and to send electronic messages to authenticated users. The competent authority can send informative messages concerning the important steps of the process however the final authority decision will be available in paper only. The remaining three services do not provide tracking facilities, however through , phone and letters it is possible to communicate progress with users. 2.3 Assistance to PSC users In general, portals can provide a variety of online and offline support to overcome problems and enhance users experience of Points of Single Contact. The Hungarian portal provides a number of highly acknowledged interactive tools to help users obtain information. When users encounter problems, a number of sources of help are available. As Table 12 shows, online assistance is provided in a variety of ways (downloadable guides, user forums and frequently-asked-questions). These are generally good, easy to use and comprehensive; however most up-to-date sources, as online videos, are not available. Users with problems to which they cannot find an answer can send to magyaroszag.hu helpdesk or authority and phone helpline. The portal states that the services aim to respond to your feedback within 5 working days; however more complex queries may take 14 working days for a response. A simple standard query (concerning steps to be undertaken in order to provide temporary architect services, sent to all portals involved in the study) did not receive a response. Assistance to users seems to be an area for improvement. 2.4 Overall quality of PSC services for users from other countries Language support To enhance cross-border activities it is recommended that portals are available in the language(s) of neighboring countries or in one of the most commonly used languages. Table 13 shows that the Hungarian PSC is currently only available in Hungarian. This is true for both general information, information on requirements, and actual application forms. However, some of the competent authority websites 13

14 linked to the PSC also have general information available in other languages (usually English or German). On the whole, the lack of services available in any other language than Hungarian can be seen as an important obstacle to the use of the PSC portal by non-hungarian service providers Finding the relevant information on applicable procedures As Table 14 shows the portal does not provide a clear distinction for foreign businesses considering permanent establishment and those wanting to offer their services on a temporary basis (i.e. without an establishment). Without having a good understanding of the Hungarian legal system, a business would find it difficult to identify the applicable procedures Completing procedures electronically Experts noted that the regulatory requirements and interaction with the portal for cross border users were not the same as for Hungary based users; online submission of forms and documents is generally not available for foreign users, electronic signatures and eids issues in other Member States cannot be used. As mentioned previously, currently the Hungarian PSC does not support eids/esignatures from other Member States, as the current approach requires the use of a Hungarian signature certificate to register, which makes many of the electronic services provided by the portal not available to foreign users. Table 14B confirms that the use of the site for the online submission of forms and documents is generally not possible, and that paper communication is almost always needed. Electronic signatures and eids issued in another Member State cannot be used. On both of these points support of only national eid/esignatures and the common need to use paper processes the PSC thus does not yet satisfy the requirements of the Services Directive. 14

15 3 Use and usability Use and usability is examined through three criteria, which are presented separately below. The overall ease of use and usability of the portal was examined by focus group participants (in Hungary and Slovakia) and egovernment experts. The nine focus group participants in Hungary were business people who are active in the three sectors covered by the study (architects, restaurants/catering, tourism). Usability was measured using the System Usability Scale (SUS) methodology, which uses an attitudinal scale where users are asked to respond to statements with a rating on a five-point (Lickert) scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. SUS examines the efficiency, effectiveness and ease of use of the portal. Unfortunately, it was not possible to carry out the cross-border focus group. When the Slovakian focus group was planned in fact (July 2011), there were no fake IDs available from Hungary. Afterwards, it was not possible to organise a new focus group for cross-border testing. Slovakian users could thus only provide a more general feedback (about information provision, general look & feel of the website, etc), but could not complete online procedures. When relevant, feedback provided by Slovakian users is reported. User satisfaction was also investigated using the Analysis of Web Application Requirements (AWARE) methodology. AWARE uses a similar Lickert based attitudinal scale to SUS. AWARE examines user satisfaction by examining users' views of various features of the portal; these include content, structure, navigation, presentation and user operation. In addition, this chapter also looks at portal positioning, promotion and take-up by business users so far. 3.1 Task completion Identifying the right procedures and finding appropriate information A key role for the portal is to enable users to find appropriate procedural and regulatory requirements prior to starting a business or starting cross-border services. Tables 15, 16 and 17 examine the ability of focus group participants to find the procedural requirements necessary to complete the six business scenarios. Focus group participants had 15 minutes using the portal to find the regulatory requirements and procedures required to complete the establishment and crossborder scenarios they examined. Focus group members could not find 5 procedures (10%). Furthermore searching was only successful if the users searched for the perfectly correct legislative terms (therefore assuming knowledge on the end of end-users). There were huge differences between the usability of the competent authorities web sites. In general, the scenarios better served by portals other than the PSC (i.e. Food and Travel 15

16 establishment) reported better results that the scenario mostly served by the Hungarian PSC website (the Architecture). The highest proportion (65%) of correct answers was reported for the food establishment scenario, whose procedures are supported for 74% by the websites of competent authorities. A proportion of 48% of correct answers was provided for the Travel establishment scenario, served for 54% of relevant procedures by the websites of competent authorities. Finally, for the Architecture establishment scenario, served mostly (60% of procedures) by the Hungarian PSC, only a 40% of correct answers are provided. Therefore, it seems that clarity of information and procedures at the PSC portal is pretty low, and should be improved. Lack of information and forms in other languages would not improve usability for foreign users. Easier access (or guidance for users) to the interactive tool would almost certainly have increased successful identification of relevant procedures. Portal staff might consider making appropriate enhancements to signpost these more effectively for users. As Tables 19, 20, 21 and 22 shows, overall there is a relatively modest level of satisfaction with the information content and the ease of access to that information on the portal. Most focus group participants found a relatively high level of usability. However, users found complex to complete the procedures, including submission of applications and documents electronically using the site. This suggests that there is room for further simplification of procedures. A small number of focus group participants suggested that there was so much information that they could not always find precisely what was required; the use of clearer headings and sub-headings, guidance and video help was suggested during discussions Completion of procedures Most task were judged as being OK to complete (namely, company registration, sector specific: person procedures, and social security formalities), whereas two were easily completed (i.e. general business licence and tax formalities). Finally, three tasks were considered difficult to complete (i.e. procedures concerning premises of the provider, place of Provision, and cross Border procedures) (and two other were found to be difficult to complete. Suggestions for improvement were made. Experts noted that a step by step guide to completion of procedures and more availability of online forms should be provided, this concerns particularly foreign users. Furthermore, focus participants considered that supporting epayments, and simplifying the use of eids and esignatures would improve the completion of online procedures. 16

17 3.1.3 Comparison of results between national focus group and other focus group In general, Slovakian users found the Hungarian portal uneasy to use. It was difficult to find the right information and only little information could be found. The users could not use the search function because it is available only in Hungarian and only based on precise legal keywords can certain items be found. 3.2 General usability and user satisfaction Tables 23 and 24 examine usability using the SUS framework. It shows that Magyaorszag.hu users found Hungary portal not particularly easy to use (neutral) and inconsistency on the website was judged neutral. The portal s layout and graphics were deemed appropriate. 3.3 Accessibility Several evaluation tools were used to examine portal accessibility and the extent to which the portal was usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. Table 25 provides the number of errors preventing full accessibility found by two of the most commonly used accessibility tools. The lower the number of errors the better. The average number of errors for all tested portals is shown in the right hand column. Overall Hungary has a low level of accessibility. The most important result in terms of usability and accessibility is the W3C Markup Validator 5. It assesses the html markup used in the web site and states whether any errors have occurred. In Hungary there were six errors that caused problems for the user. Finally, accessibility was measured using the W3C CSS Validator 6, which measures the degree to which web-sites adhere to web standards as regards cascading style sheets (CSS). CSS errors mean that information does not display correctly, or at all. For a website to be considered of good accessibility, the maximum number of errors should be 100. Table 25 shows that the W3c test found 34 CSS validation problems and 13 warnings. 3.4 Take-up, positioning and promotion The simplified of PSC portal "Ügyfélkapu" was launched on 6 March The Central Electronic Service System has more than 880,000 users and provides services to 2,330 authorities in program. The number of the portal s visitors and of uploaded documents significantly increases during the period of personal income tax return deadline (e.g. 18 March 2010 individual visitors number exceeded 138,000, nearly 850 thousand document uploads were recorded during 10 days (mostly tax return forms)). Information about

18 use of the website by non-national is not available at the moment. This may depend on the fact that the portal does not cater for the needs of foreign businesses. (E.g. information and forms only in Hungarian). On the contrary, it seems to be rather a national egovernment portal. Users registration is valid only for an individually specified period and must be continually extended (e.g. one registered before 1 October 2009, his/her password expired on 1 October Searching for the Point of Single contact expression s translation, the search engines offer EUGO website, from where one can navigate to the Hungarian portal, but no direct link is given to the Hungarian portal by any of the engines. Client Gate can be reached from the portal magyarorszag.hu. In case of searching for the Hungarian expression Client Gate (ügyfélkapu), first ranked results are the services of the PSC portal (e-learning, help) and a list of procedures, which can be completed on the PSC (tax return, vehicle related administrative processes, etc.). Key PSC related phrases were examined in two search engines. It has to be remarked that the search was performed for each portal in the national language. Table 26 shows that for Hungarian key phrases ranked beyond the 50 th search result using the Google and Yahoo search engine. As Table 27 presents, some of the focus group's participants were registered and frequent users of the portal. But major part of the participants only had some information about the portal and basically none of the participants knew that the portal is part of the EUGO network. The portal itself does not contain EUGO logo, nor link to the EUGO portal. 18

19 4 Administration, organization and back office enablers This section examines the operational aspects that impact on the practical functioning of the portal activities. This includes the degree of back-office integration (i.e. the interplay between competent authorities responsible for specific procedures handled through the PSC and the portal itself); it investigates the degree of resource availability and it includes the overall egovernment readiness of a Member States, in particular as regards key technical enablers such as the ability to handle electronic IDs, e-signatures or e-payment means. 4.1 Back office integration and cooperation with competent authorities For the portal to offer its services to businesses in an effective manner, it is vital that all competent authorities are closely connected to the portal. Without successful back-office integration, it would be challenging to ensure up-to-date information and electronic application forms are available in a coherent manner across the board. Secondly, providing the means to complete a wide array of electronic procedures through a single portal can potentially offer serious efficiency gains through a push towards a standardization of relevant forms as well as the means to sign applications electronically and to submit application files. In Hungary, the PSC portal acts mainly as a signpost, redirecting users to the sites of competent authorities. However, it also provides directly some procedures. The PSC portal is part of a larger Government Portal for businesses and citizens. As such, it liaises with a high number of different authorities and bodies, which are all linked through the Central Electronic Service System, which represents the backbone of the Hungarian egovernment system. Approximately 2,500 institutions are currently linked to the Central Electronic Service System, through Administration Getaways (organizations may dispose of several Administration Gateways). The PSC belongs to the Central Electronic Service System. Elements of the Central Electronic Service System are: Electronic Government Backbone: provides basic infrastructure for secure and fast communication between government agencies; Government Portal ( provides information and platform for public services; Client Gate: provides personal identification for administrative procedures, and assures access to e-services; Administration Gateway: enables the connected authorities to receive authenticated electronic messages and to send electronic messages to authenticated clients; Secure Document Exchange Service: provides secure and structured electronic communication between PA bodies, as well as PA bodies and citizens/businesses; 19

20 Electronic Message Repository: offers secure repository to where public authorities can send documents, and where users can also save documents sent to authorities, or delivery receipts; Electronic Payment Service: enables the electronic payment and processing of duties and administrative service fees; Government Customer Information Centre: provides professional and official information and enables citizens and organizations to pose their questions and queries. The Hungarian PSC has a formal remit towards competent authorities, which consists of a legal obligation of authorities to elaborate and update information content of case descriptions and make available electronic forms through the PSC. Case descriptions include general information and links to competent authorities websites, where more detailed information can be found on the relevant procedure. There is legal obligation of authorities to ensure that information and services provided through the PSC are reliable and up-to-date. The PSC checks regularly the links and contents of the portal, to avoid and/or reduce technical errors (such as broken links). In order to ensure that queries, applications and requests are dealt with as quickly as possible, the following back-office procedure is put in place. Applications can be sent to competent authorities after Client Gate identification through the Secure Document Exchange Service. Competent Authorities receive applications in a message repository connected to the Administration Gateway. The PSC provides the technical infrastructure for sending applications and forwarding them immediately. Thus, the time spent on processing the application depends on the competent authority. PSC staff however is not monitoring the handling of individual cases. Overall, the appraisal emerged during interviews was that the back-office integration between PSC and competent authorities works effectively. The Central Electronic Service System provides Administration Gateway, secure Document Exchange Service and Organizational Mailbox for competent authorities enabling them to receive authenticated electronic messages and to send electronic messages to authenticated clients. Regulations and requirements concerning standards and documentations to be submitted for online procedures are decided by competent authorities. Similarly, requests of eids and/or esignatures originate from competent authorities responsible for the online procedure. Therefore, the PSC has not competency on that respect. As Table 28 illustrates, nearly 2500 competent authorities (including municipalities) and organizations providing public services joined the Central Electronic Service System. There are several competent authorities who joined to the Central Electronic Service System, but are reluctant to provide electronic services via the Central 20

21 Electronic Service System or in general. This issue is not overcome. Steps have been taken in order to streamline cooperation among different authorities. 4.2 Finance and resources Official information on the costs of development of the PSC is not available. The PSC is under continuous development, the last biggest development of Ügyfélkapu was at the start of in Also, information concerning the operational and staffing costs of the PSC was not available for this survey. The Hungarian PSC is part of a larger Government Portal for businesses and citizens, which also provides information and/or allows for procedure completion in areas not relevant under the Services Directive (such as taxation, human resources or birth/marriage certificates). Since development and running costs refer to the whole system, we cannot give practical estimations concerning the development and running costs of the PSC according to the model described in the Services Directive. The portal is currently administered by approximately 40 staff (full-time by the PSC). Interviewees have considered sufficient the current level of funding. 4.3 Status of key technical enablers (eid, e-signatures, e-payments) The use of electronic identification on the Hungarian PSC through Ügyfélkapu requires a Hungarian eid, which can be acquired in person at the dedicated Registration Offices (Okmányiroda), and requires the use of a Hungarian electronic signature during the registration process. Thus, foreign service providers will typically not be able to use functions of the PSC requiring electronic identification or signing. This situation is thus not yet compliant with the requirements of the Services Directive. Hungary is looking closely to the results of the STORK and SPOCS projects, with a willing to implement the solutions developed by those projects, as they will become available. As far as the implementation of the three comitology decisions on electronic procedures (Decision 2009/767/EC8, Decision 2010/425/EU9, 2011/130/EU10) is concerned, the situation is Hungary is somewhat confused. 7 The Electronic Administration Operational Programme has achieved the desired expansion of the Central Electronic Service System, the public utilities services, on the establishment and development project. Under application the project be supported 100% of the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund co-financing can take place. ( 8 Decision 2009/767/EC setting out measures facilitating the use of procedures by electronic means through the 'Points of Single Contact' under Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market, OJ L 299, , p

22 The NMHH (National Media and Information and Communications Authority) maintains and endorses the Trusted List. Technically, the Trusted List and the software application are ready in Hungary (the system performed well during tests.) However, it is not integrated into the PSC. The required check for authenticity and integrity of electronically signed documents were originally achieved through the Client Gateway (Ügyfélkapu). Documents uploaded were regarded as genuine when stored on Client Gateway s server, as it requires identification). However, the Client Gateway cannot efficiently be used by foreign residents due to mandatory registration with the Office of Government Issued Documents and the website only in Hungarian language. The development of Client Gateway system s capability to accept electronically signed documents is in progress. It is unclear which authority should supervise and coordinate these developments. Competence over these issues used to be of the EU Public Contract Coordination and Compliance Unit (EKKE). It then passed over to the Office of the Prime minister (MEH), and afterwards to the Ministry for National Development (NFM). After these legislative changes, competency is unclear. The software developed by the Commission for creation/verification of esignatures is available, but plans as on how and when it will be integrated into the national infrastructure are blurred. Dispute over competency has to be solved first. Similarly, as noted above, e-payments are typically not supported through the PSC. It however hoped that this functionality will be implemented in the future, as it can be supported by the Central Electronic Service System. 9 Comitology Decision amending Decision 2009/767/EC as regards the establishment, maintenance and publication of trusted lists of certification service providers supervised/accredited by Member States (2010/425/EU) 10 Comitology Decision establishing minimum requirements for the cross-border processing of documents signed electronically by competent authorities under Directive 2006/123/EC (2011/130/EU): 22

23 5 Future Outlook There is an evolving project under the Electronic Administration Operative Programme aiming at the renewal of the electronic PSC by elaborating and introducing a life event-based information system, corporate representative and mandate management system and new on-line web-forms for administrative procedures. The main expected barriers for the development of the PSC are introducing e- payment, organizational challenges, changing legal environment, and resources. Operation and development of the PSC besides strong cooperation with competent authorities requires a close partnership between organizations responsible for technical and content issues, and between the supervising ministries (Ministry of National Development and Ministry of Public Administration and Justice). 23

24 6 Strengths, weaknesses and recommendations This study examined the readiness of the Magyorszag.hu and magyorszag.ugyfelkapu.hu portal by investigating its ability to support the completion of six business scenarios. However a lot of detailed information can be found on the website, it was unable to support access to all procedures required, especially for foreign users (Slovakian test) and provided full support for only two processes to complete from the six business scenarios. 6.1 Availability and quality of PSC services Overall the Hungarian PSC still has a long way to go to be fully functioning for both Hungarian and foreign users. Expert analysis found that the portal meets some of the requirements of the Services Directive, but its usability by local and foreign businesses is not satisfactory. Although the scope of procedures covered by the portal is quite comprehensive, the testing has shown that the level of maturity of egovernment is still relatively low for many procedures. The shift from the paper to the electronic world is often incomplete and the users are still required to send supporting documents by post or t present himself in person in order to use the electronic portal. Information provision and the quality of the search facility is generally good, however, the search facility, FAQs and several other user support elements are only available in Hungarian and require relatively high background information on legal/administrative requirements. Both experts and focus group participants thought that regulation checklists for business activities, user friendly search tool, step-to-step menus and video help could enhance usability. The Hungarian PSC is clearly focusing primarily on national usage; little efforts are made to develop the PSC into a useful tool for businesses from abroad. There is little information on what the different requirements may be for a business wanting to establish or a business wanting to provide services temporarily. And as regards the completion of procedures, the barriers for foreigners are extremely high, both in terms of language but, more importantly in terms of technical barriers (obligation to obtain Hungarian electronic signatures). 6.2 Summarising expert assessment Table 18B shows that for all PSC components assessed by the egovernment experts, the Hungarian portal scored lower than the average of all portals. This is particularly true for the completion of procedures for foreign businesses (in terms of multilingual availability but also in terms of technical obstacles through the overarching requirement to have a Hungarian electronic signature in order to start any application procedures through the PSC at all). The same holds true for other components related to the completion of procedures, notably the use of online 24