Digital Government: The Once-Only Principle in Practice

Digital government should not be measured by the number of new applications, but by how much time and administration it genuinely saves people and businesses. The once-only principle therefore depends on one simple condition: public administration must be able to share data securely and take responsibility for the entire process, not just individual systems.

The biggest obstacle often lies not in the technology itself but in fragmented governance, inconsistent standards and weak coordination among institutions. The result can be new digital services that merely replicate outdated paper-based procedures.

Which life events can genuinely be simplified? Who should be responsible for a service working across multiple authorities? And how can we ensure that further investment in digitalisation creates one functioning system rather than new isolated silos?

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