The starting point in the community building process 2018
The municipalities are responsible for most of the government processes that are part of the community building process, and therefore this chapter focuses on how far Sweden's 290 municipalities have come in the digitalisation of the community building process. Other important actors who must also participate in digitization are, for example, government agencies, the County Administrative Board, construction actors, property owners, citizens who all must be involved in the municipalities' digitization but also in their own.
No municipality is the same as the other. Some municipalities have come a long way while others have barely begun. Nowhere is there a coherent digital process. Within a municipality, they have often come different distances within the different parts of the process. The building permit process can, for example, be ahead of the development and is then limited by the fact that the detailed planning process, which creates the important basis, is not as far ahead.
The picture schematically describes how far the municipalities have come on the road to a digital unbroken process January 2018.
The color signals how many municipalities have a digital way of working in each perspective and phase
Yellow = most Orange = a few Red = none
If we sum up the situation on the basis of the steps mentioned in the Roadmap, we can state that the municipalities have not come as far with the later steps as with the first ones. This is natural because you have to work with basic conditions such as digital information, digital workflows and digital dialogue before you can start automating processes.
Digital information is the step that the municipalities have come the furthest with. Work has begun here in all parts and in some places they have come a long way. There are still shortcomings in the form of standardization and lack of certain digital information, such as planning regulations.
Digital workflow is most developed in geodata management, property development and building permits, and worst in detailed planning and management. The biggest obstacle is the lack of digital planning regulations information that hinders development, especially in property development and building permits.
Digital dialogue occurs primarily within building permits and construction phases, and to some extent within general plans. Digital dialogue could be used to a greater extent but is slowed down by legal obstacles and the lack of national solutions.
Automation occurs in a few municipalities in building permit management and could be further developed if the process in the the first phases were digital to a greater extent.
Here you can read more about the different sub-processes.
Here you can read more about the different sub-processes
From the picture, it can be seen that the municipalities have come quite far when it comes to both existing and planned land use. Basic geographical information is often available digitally. There is an awareness and process for how the information should be handled, even if it is not yet standardized or available through services. Planned land use (overview plan) is available digitally in a few municipalities but is then not standardized.
Detailed plan is the sub-process within which there is the greatest need to begin digitization. There is a major shortcoming here when it comes to access to digital detailed plan information and plan regulations. Few municipalities have digitized their planning regulations and made them available to other actors. This is an obstacle to subsequent processes that need this information to digitize and automate workflows. There is also a lot of investigative information that would need to be made available nationally to make it easier for both the municipalities and other actors.
Property formation is a process that is handled by both state and municipal surveying authorities. Since the surveying authorities use the same processing system, the workflow is more or less the same, but there is still a need to develop common methods for citizen dialogue and automation of simple matters.
A few municipalities have successfully succeeded in digitizing and to some extent automating the building permit process so that it enables a completely paperless process. In order to be able to continue the development, detailed plan information and plan regulations also need to be digitized.
During the construction phase, initiatives and tests are underway to achieve a digital process. There is still work to be done when it comes to the connection between BIM and geodata, which today cannot be combined.
The management phase includes management of buildings, facilities, streets, parks and nature areas. Geodata is available and is digital, but in order to conduct more efficient management of properties and facilities, the municipalities could make greater use of 3D models and BIM. The Internet of Things (IoT) also means an opportunity for municipalities to follow up on how efficiently a building or facility is managed. Through sensors, more information about, for example, heat and water consumption can be collected and operations thus streamlined.
It is clear that municipalities and authorities have a long journey ahead of them to achieve the goal of an uninterrupted digital community-building process. One may ask why municipalities and authorities have not come any further?
The fact that digitalisation has not had such a large impact on the community building process is due to several different factors. The obstacles are known and measures have been initiated in various places so that the conditions for municipalities and authorities will be better.
The legislation does not support a digital process
The legislation that governs the community building process; The Planning and Building Act, the Property Development Act, the Environmental Code, etc., do not support digital processes. As a rule, the legislation does not say who is responsible for the information that is created and what requirements are placed on making it available. Sometimes the legislation may even require that documents be prepared in paper form, such as when transferring real estate and easements.
There is a lack of cross-organizational governance and collaboration
The actors in the community building process are many; 290 municipalities, the National Land Survey, the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, other state authorities, the County Administrative Boards, construction actors, property owners, citizens and others. With the management model we have in Sweden, there is only a low level of joint control of the process or digitization. The municipalities and the authorities are more or less self-governing and do not cooperate to a sufficient degree to enable digitization to have an impact. The downpipes are also present within the organizations and make digitization more difficult. Municipalities and authorities must move away from the downpipes and collaborate more in order for them to succeed in the task of digitizing operations.
Financing models do not support the development of the digital process
The benefits of digitalisation affect society at large. The demand for government information is great and the opportunities for business and industry increase when public activities are digitized. Often the greatest benefit arises outside the business or entity that initiated a digitization initiative. The cost can thus be greater than the savings for the individual unit, but in total the entire organization and society benefit from the measures. The issue of funding must therefore be raised to higher levels in the organizations, and benefits that fall to citizens and the business community must be taken into account to a greater extent.
Lack of competence and capacity
In the public construction industry, there is a great lack of competence and capacity throughout the process. More people would need to be trained and employed in order for the processing times to be at reasonable levels. When it comes to digitization, the lack of competence is even more pronounced. Few have an understanding of the effects of digitalisation and that digitalisation itself is a way of solving skills and capacity shortages.
Lack of open data
A lack of open data in this context means that access to the information is limited by the fact that it is difficult to find, understand and use. This is because the information is not described or standardized and that it usually has conditional use and is subject to a fee. All in all, this inhibits and limits the use.
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