IMI

Reference framework

Within the framework of EU measures, on 7 October 2020, the Spanish state government approved Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), which sets out the lines of action for modernising the Spanish economy and is structured around four areas: ecological transition, social and regional cohesion, digitalisation and gender equality. This PRTR was approved by the European Commission on 16 June 2021.

Barcelona City Council is pursuing the digital transformation of the City Council through the implementation of smart solutions geared towards improving management processes and internal procedures, with a focus on simplifying, standardising and modernising procedures, improving their efficiency and effectiveness.

Description

Administrative procedures are a specific feature of the public sector with a strong regulatory component, and considerable human resources and time are needed in order to carry out the administrative digital transition. Under the umbrella of the Digital Transition Plan, the robotic process automation (RPA) project has been designed to create a process automation service that will help to improve the quality of the services provided to city residents. This robotic process automation (RPA) technology will enable us to replicate the actions of a person interacting with a computer system, and will thus ensure that repetitive tasks with low added value are delegated to this automated system, thereby enabling workers to devote their time to processes with greater added value.

The implementation of this new technology will enable us to improve the quality of the services to which it is applied and maximise the efficiency of business processes, helping to increase productive capacity. It will also help to increase the guarantees, confidentiality and transparency of these processes, ensuring the consistency of the data processed and the scheduled and documented execution of the process.

Automated processes

• Regional Coordination/Eixample Area Division (DT) – Ariadna
• Urban Ecology/DSI - Terraces
• Urban Ecology/Urban planning - Paisa Grants
• Municipal Institute of Education (IMEB) – Nursery Schools
• IMEB – Extracting Merits Selection Processes
• Municipal Institute of Information Technology (IMI) – Demand management
• Resources - Grants
• Human Resources - Extracting Merits Selection Processes
• (in development, scheduled for November 2023) Municipal Institute of Social Services (IMSS) - Branch office/Extranet of Catalan Administrations (EACAT)
• (in development, not yet scheduled) IMSS - Parking card for disabled persons

The Barcelona Municipal Tax Office (IMH) is also carrying out a project to construct eleven new automated processes which will be added to the two already in use, making a total of thirteen automated business processes by the end of 2023 in this area of the City Council.

To ensure the continued roll-out of this technology, the IMI, in addition to providing cross-cutting technical support from the RPA service management platform, is also offering a conceptualisation service for new proposals for business processes that could be automated, analysing their viability from both a technical and economic viewpoint, and documenting the functional aspects of the process analysed.

This service is extremely useful for the different business areas looking to introduce this new technology into their business processes for the first time, both in terms of defining the scope, the integrations and components required to carry out the automation of the process, and conducting the economic analysis to adequately justify the expenditure.

Next Generation Line of Action: PRIORITY 3 Strategic Line of Action 2.  Greater efficiency in services and processes.