How to optimize Government processes with blockchain
The City of Roeselare has been exploring how blockchain can make their local government processes more efficient. Through workshops and deep dives in 2022 they were evaluating in which ways blockchain can be of added value for public service delivery. An external partner namely, The Value Hub – part of the Cronos Group – was consulted during this journey. This article aims to summarize the concluding report of this journey. More information can be found in the BLING blockchain book from page 99 onwards.
In order to assess the applicability of blockchain within a certain process, a risk based approach developed by The Value Hub was used. The applicability of blockchain is more likely when one or more of the following risks exists in that process:
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Criterion |
Description |
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Integrity risk |
Integrity is the event in which a certain piece of information has been modified or deleted in a fraudulent or unauthorized way. |
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Veracity risk |
Veracity is defined as the correctness or accuracy of the contents of a certain piece of information. The veracity risk is the event in which a certain piece of information doesn’t resemble the truth. |
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Duplication risk |
In this context, we define duplication as the necessity to manage information or decision making in a duplicated fashion at multiple parties in order to ensure the correctness of the information / decision making process. |
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Reputation risk |
Reputational risk is the event in which the trustworthiness of the information or decisions is questioned due to the nature of the party providing them. |
The severity of a certain risk is determined by two factors:
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Criterion |
Description |
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Scalability |
The scalability shows the scale at which the problem occurs and at which the problem can be solved. |
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Involved parties |
Parties are independent entities that are involved within a certain process or system. |
About 40 processes were scanned based on these criteria. The following four processes seem to have potential to be optimized by blockchain after this first analysis:
- The management of the temporary use of public space (by inhabitants)
- The management of staff competences
- The management of the leisure pass
- The management of the housing grants
The next step was to dive deeper in these processes during different workshops with also some experts of each process. The workshops included the following steps:
- Listing all the relevant parties/actors
- Writing down the starting point of the process
- Writing down the ending point of the process
- Discussing and writing down all the steps in between the start and the ending point
- Discussing the possible ineffective elements
- Discussing whether blockchain can offer a solution for the possible ineffective elements
These deep dive sessions resulted in a business process diagram for each process with the possible critical notes and whether blockchain can offer a blockchain to these. For three out of the four investigated processes blockchain could not solve the ineffective elements. But for one of them namely, the process of the leisure pass blockchain could mean an optimalization.
The leisure pass (“vrijetijdspas”) provides a discount at leisure activities for citizens of Roeselare with a limited income. Next, the leisure activities providers (societies, clubs, theatres, sport activities…) get that discount reimbursed by the City of Roeselare. The process currently includes some vulnerabilities and blockchain could be a way to overcome those.
In the context of the BLING project, a proof of concept of a blockchain version of the leisure pass was developed by The Value Hub. This was in collaboration with employees of the City of Roeselare namely the policy officers responsible for the leisure pass and the leisure activities providers but also the public worker who is in contact with the users of the leisure pass. The first step in this development was another analysis of the current process with, this time, a focus on the gaps and vulnerabilities. The policy officers could also express the possible changes that are priority for them and which ones are nice to have.
After this workshop the analysts of The Value Hub started to build the proof of concept of the leisure pass. A first version was tested by three different users from three different target groups (families, senior aged couple and someone with a multicultural background). After the next local elections in October 2024, the (new) municipal council will decide whether they will roll out the blockchain version of the leisure pass or if they choose for another option for the future of the leisure pass.